


The Ghost and the Darkness

by natascha_ronin



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Captain Swan - Freeform, F/M, ghost story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-07-10 12:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6985615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natascha_ronin/pseuds/natascha_ronin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan is an investigative reporter, drawn to a small town in Maine, where several of the town's residents have mysteriously gone missing. She's completely unaware of the bizarre and terrifying world she's about to step into. Miss Swan had better start believing in ghost stories...because she's in one, and her life might just depend on the world she never imagined could exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Autumn came early to Boston that year. Emma Swan, emerging from the train, her iPhone in hand, earbuds in ears, rushed down the sidewalk along William T. Morrisey Boulevard to beat the morning chill in the air. She didn’t see the boy who trailed behind her, who walked nearly beside her as she entered the building that housed The Boston Globe. 

Unaware, she entered the elevator and ascended to the third floor, leaning her head back against the wall while music shut out the conversations around her. She didn’t notice that the boy followed her to her cubicle, watched her hang up her red leather jacket, and slip off her sneakers before bending over to pull on a pair of sensible flats to accompany her pantsuit. 

He waited until she plugged her laptop into the docking station at her desk and reached back to fiddle with the wonky power cord before silently reaching across the narrow passage to place a heavy manila envelope on the precarious stack occupying her inbox. He slipped away quietly, noticed by no one, humming a haunting tune and wrapping his striped scarf around his neck.

 

_Emma,_

_Please see me on this reference for the hiring scandal report. I’m having a hard time tracking down the source with the phone number you gave me. Also, please note that when copy goes to dump, we need a hard placement in the red folder, not the blue one._

_Thanks,_

_August_

 

Emma looked up from her laptop and sighed, exasperated. August probably had the wrong phone number written down in his notes. His handwriting was atrocious. The guy should have been a doctor, not an editor. 

She typed out a response to him, cursing the archaic practices of her place of employment. Newspapers were going under all over the world, and her department still kept paper copies of the layout. In a paperless society, she found the idea stupid. She had hoped when she came to this department three years prior that it would be different from classified advertising, but no dice. 

At The Globe, someone had to pretty much die before their position was open, but when Sabrina Barlow decided to ditch the Spotlight Team for CNN a few years back, Emma lunged for the opportunity. Having been stuck writing obits for the first few years at the paper, it seemed like a fun job, working for the investigative team that was famous for taking down dirty politicians, pedophile Catholic priests, and exposing scandals in and out of the Boston area. What she didn’t know then was that she wouldn’t be involved in anything major until she had worked enough crap jobs to prove her mettle as an investigative journalist. 

So, she sat under the microscope and prayed for a case to break. Something, anything, to make a great story. Sure, it was an illusion of grandeur, but she was determined to make a name for herself other than a nobody orphan who just happened to get lucky with a scholarship to Arizona State fresh out of prison. Her hard luck story and the essay she penned from prison to win the scholarship was the first of several times she felt like she had sold her soul to get ahead in the world.

It was bad enough that she was practically an ex-felon birthmother whose worst crime was trusting the wrong douchebag with her future, but there wasn’t a whole lot of success to be had with pining away for the life that could have been. Instead, she forged ahead, hell-bent on flushing out scumbags just like her ex and publishing their smirking mugs for the world to see along with their dirtiest secrets.

She was currently attempting to string together a lead for a corrupt chief of police out in Wakefield, the local press getting nowhere fast with his employees, and she had hit a dead end with a hire who appeared to have a felony record. She was waiting to hear back from the town who supposedly fired him for failing a drug test. There wasn’t much to do except kill time, but she put in an appearance at the office to save face. She was still pretty new on the team. Most of the department had been there a decade at least. 

So when she reached over to her inbox to sort through inter-office memos and copy edits (blue folders, not red, Emma), she squinted at the large manila envelope that slid with a thump onto her desk. It was unmarked, sealed only with a brad at the flap, so she opened it and pulled out the contents.

They were articles, clippings from a newspaper called The Daily Mirror. The articles were investigative in nature, detailing the disappearances of several residents in the town. A husband and wife, a pregnant teenager, a patient in a mental health facility, the chief of police, and the editor of the newspaper had all apparently gone missing over the course of a few months. The articles didn’t appear to indicate any motive or possible suspects in the disappearance. 

It was bizarre and intriguing. She looked around for a note or a source for a lead. Nothing.

The bulk of the envelope contained a paperback book, a travel guide to a place called Storybrooke in Maine. She looked on the back and around the book for a map, and found instead a typewritten page of turn-by-turn directions with a map imposed on it, the town marked by a red star. It looked to be about a four hour drive up I-95 to some dinky little town out by Swans Island. That must have been where the disappearances had taken place. 

Emma had never driven further than Ogunquit in Maine, on a few shopping excursions to the outlet malls in Kittery, eating lobster rolls out at the shacks by the beach. The tourist season was over, September marking the end of the family vacations in New England. She could probably drive up there over the weekend and take a look around, see if the story looked promising. There were worse things than a small-town serial killer or a gang she could write about, but she was in a slump. The major stories were flocked by the more experienced reporters on her team. Why not?

What could it hurt?

She spent the rest of her morning sending emails, wrapping up a few loose ends, and reading up on the small town she had every plan to drive up to that afternoon, provided the bed and breakfast had a vacancy. There was no phone number or information on the town when she googled it. _Must be one of those blinking stoplight towns,_ she thought. 

Her bullshit meter should have been going crazy about this. Still, something about the disappearances and small town had her intrigued. She felt a determination to drive out there and figure out what the local investigation couldn’t. Maybe she could wheedle out some information from the right sources if she could just get a chance. It would make for an interesting story, if nothing else.

 

The boy watched as Emma boarded the train headed south toward her apartment. He made his way to the northbound train, hoping for just enough time to reach the bus station. He had to hurry home. Someone needed to be in town to help Emma find her way, because when she got there, she wasn’t ever going to leave.

 

It was late evening by the time Emma pulled onto Main Street in Storybrooke. Few people milled about the town square, likely one of those sleeply places that closed at sundown. She spotted a sign for a bed and breakfast, a quaint little place behind a diner of the same name. The proprietor, a sweet old lady, a Missus Lucas who just went by “Granny”, showed Emma up to her room with labored breaths, feet heavy on the uncarpeted hardwood stairs. 

“Here you are, dear,” she huffed, “room one-oh-eight.” Granny unlocked the door for her and swung the door open.

“Oh, it has a view.” Emma smiled wistfully at the seascape just beyond the rooftops. 

“Yup, you take a left on Seaside Avenue and you’re right at the harbor.”

The moon rose over the ocean, spikes of sails creating stark shadows on glistening waves. She was mesmerized by the sight, not hearing the elderly woman say, “Goodnight,” after setting the room key on the dresser. 

Emma turned around when she heard the door click shut, then glanced back out to the harbor. One sailboat in particular caught her eye, and she leaned forward, pressing her nose against the window to get a closer look. 

It wasn’t a boat; it was a wooden ship, with two masts, the sails down, sitting on the wharf. Emma didn’t know much about sailing, but the ship in the harbor was definitely a replica or well-loved 18th century vessel. She made a note to check it out in the morning. If nothing else, the excursion to Storybrooke would be a fun mini-vacation.

She decided to shower and turn in for the night, getting an early start in the morning. She’d start with the local law enforcement and see if anything turned up there. Maybe the town hall or the library would have some records. She checked her phone; there didn’t seem to be a wifi connection at the B&B. Maybe she could plug her laptop in at the library.

As she snuggled into bed, she wondered about the odd little town, with no real modern conveniences and insanely low gas prices (she had done a double-take when she saw the sign driving by the gas station). The place seemed lost in time, but she found it intriguing and uncanny, like a town in a mystery novel. Say nothing for the six missing people. That was the real mystery. 

She awoke sometime much later, startled from an odd dream. She had been dreaming of being chased through a forest by a wolf, and she couldn’t run fast enough to escape it. 

She started to roll over, when something caught her eye. She gasped, but something took her voice and she couldn’t scream. Her heart began to pound; she was paralyzed with fear. 

A man stood in the moonlight next to the window, staring at her. Half in shadow, with stark features, a brooding stare on his pale face, black hair hanging over his forehead, dark circles under his eyes, and a stubbled beard. He stood unmoving, glaring at her from across the room. 

With increasing horror, she managed to pull herself up against the headboard, scrambling for the lamp, eyes transfixed on the stranger in her bedroom. He didn’t move towards her.

He wore a black frock coat that cut high into his cheekbones, black shirt, black pants. 

_A man in black has come to kill me_ , she thought ruefully. She looked away from him momentarily to find and the knob on the lamp, trying not to blink when light flooded the room. She frantically grabbed the only hard thing she could find – the alarm clock on the nightstand – and yanked it out of the wall to defend herself with. 

When she looked back, fully expecting him to be nearly upon her, he was gone.

Quickly, she jumped up on her feet on the bed, peering over the side, holding the clock over her head like a weapon. She jumped down and flung the bed skirt up, but he wasn’t hiding under the bed. 

Emma stood in the exact spot where she had seen him. Had she hallucinated the whole thing? Surely there was a man, a sinister looking man, standing at the foot of her bed not a moment ago. She looked out the window, but it didn’t look like the lock was tampered with, and the window was closed. She was on the second floor. How did he get in?

An feeling of disbelief washed over her. Had she dreamt the whole thing? She walked over to the door of her bedroom and checked the lock, then pulled open the door to peer out into the hallway. Nobody was standing in the hallway, she didn’t hear footsteps, and it was well-lit. 

She closed the door and leaned back against it, sliding down to the floor. She set the clock down next to her and looked around the room, eyes wide, the sound of her breath the only thing she could hear over her hammering heart.

Something really freaky was going on in this town.


	2. Chapter Two

Henry Mills woke to the sound of his mother’s knock on the door. 

“Yeah?” He rolled over and blinked, bleary-eyed. 

“It’s seven o’clock,” his mother called from the hallway.

Henry sighed. He had returned home last night from his trip to Boston to an irate mother. Regina was enraged after finding out he had returned safely, demanding to know where he had gone. When he refused to answer, she had sent him to his room and grounded him for two weeks. 

He dressed quickly, wondering if Emma Swan was awake yet. He hoped she had followed his directions and made it into town last night. He didn’t worry about finding her. There was only one place in town that rented rooms out, and the town hadn’t had any visitors his whole life, so Emma being at Granny’s and an outsider was sure to cause a stir. 

He ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, grabbing a bowl and cereal from the cabinet. His mom stood in front of the sink, leaning against it and sipping coffee. She peered at him over the rim of the mug.

“Morning,” he muttered. 

“Good morning, Henry,” she greeted, “still not talking in more than two syllables, I see.”

“Nope.” He kept his eyes trained on the milk he poured into his bowl. 

Regina shook her head and gave him a cursory look. “Fine. I’m walking you to school. You’re to come straight home this afternoon, no playground, no Granny’s. Understood?”

“Yep,” Henry mumbled around a mouthful of food. He had no plans of listening to her. If his mother was in town, his real mother, he planned on seeing her today. School let out before Regina left the office, and he could use those few hours to talk to Emma and convince her to help him.

 

Emma groaned. There were worse things than falling asleep on the floor, but at the moment, she couldn’t think of any. Her neck hurt, her back hurt, and her left leg was numb from sleeping against the door of her room. She didn’t know when she had finally fallen back to sleep, sometime around dawn when blue light was seeping into the window. She had come to the conclusion that she must have been dreaming when she thought she saw the man. That was the only explanation for the fact that she hadn’t seen him after she turned on the light.

She rubbed her sore neck as she looked out the window she had seen him next to. The morning sun was muted by clouds, but pieces of sunlight broke through and shone across the bay. Waves shimmered and danced as lobster boats zig-zagged over them. Sailboats littered the wharf. She squinted, looking for the ship she had seen a glimpse of the night before, and found its tall mast jutting up above the rest, majestic and ancient. Something about the ship drew her in. She decided to pay it a visit after breakfast.

She showered in the small ensuite bathroom, taking her time and letting the water run over her tired muscles. She would be twenty-eight years old in a little over a month and she felt like her body was not quite as sturdy as it had been a few years ago. Fine lines were starting to appear next to her eyes, and night cream was becoming a necessity. 

Coffee was, too. What had been a passing fancy at Starbucks in college became a daily staple. As she curled her hair and dressed, she figured a decent breakfast wouldn’t hurt her today, either. She passed by the coffee pot in her room, deciding that a good cup of espresso would be in order after her restless night, grabbing her money clip and cell phone before heading down to the diner. 

Fancy coffee turned out to be a tall order for a small town like Storybrooke.

“Espresso?” The scantily-clad waitress scoffed. “How about Folgers?” She winked at Emma and slapped a menu down in front of her. 

Emma looked around the small diner. Time really did seem to have stopped in this town. If she were a feature writer, Storybrooke would be a fun town to do a story on. Maybe the place had kitsch, and a vox pop could make a big hit out of the small-town life, enlisting the citizens in interesting stories about covered bridges, main streets, or cigar-store Indians. She saw the potential. It was homey without being cheap. 

The waitress appeared with a coffee cup and a steaming pot. 

“Know what you want to order yet?” She poured the thick brew into the cup.

“Just a few pancakes and some bacon.”

“Gotcha, babe.” She slipped the menu out from under Emma’s arms, jotted something down on a pad in front of her. “You new in town?”

“I’m a reporter for The Boston Globe,” she pulled her press badge out of her jacket pocket. “I’m up here investigating the recent disappearances.”

“Really?” The waitress leaned on the table. “Wow, I didn’t think it would get that kind of attention.”

Emma nodded. “Yeah, it did. I got some kind of a press packet in the mail.” She squinted. There hadn’t been a return address, come to think of it. “But six disappearances in as many weeks? That’s bound to turn more than a few heads. I’m surprised I haven’t heard about it before now.” She took a sip of her coffee.

“Well, I’m Ruby,” the waitress said, tapping a painted fingernail on her name badge, “Folks around here call me Red.” She lowered her lashes and bit her lip. “Welcome to Storybrooke.”

“Emma Swan.” She gave Ruby a professional smile. “Now, how about that breakfast?”

“No problem, doll.” She walked back toward the kitchen.

 

After breakfast, Emma walked down to the docks. Seagulls shrieked out a greeting in the morning sun. The clouds seemed to have scattered. Her boots crunched over crab shells littering the wharf in a macabre clamor that masked the early hustle along the waterfront. 

She spotted the tall ship docked at the end of the wharf, and grabbed her phone to snap a few pictures of it. It looked even more curious up close. The bottom of the hull, visible above the water, was painted white, with yellow and blue trim along the edge. 

There must have been some kind of history or heritage regarding the ship. She had toured the USS Constitution in Boston a few years prior, and had always found old ships fascinating. As she stood next to a roped off gangway, she noticed a man standing on the deck. 

“Ahoy!” She called up to him, and then cringed, feeling silly.

The man perked up and waved down to her. “Ahoy there!” He walked over to the gunwale. “Tours on Tuesdays only, ma’am.” 

“Oh, I’m not here for a tour,” she called up. 

The man walked down the gangway toward her. He was a portly man, with beady eyes peeking out from behind a full beard and mustache. He wore a red beanie and swayed his arms to and fro. 

“Sorry, miss, I didn’t catch that.” He smiled at her. They were the same height.

She stuck out her hand. “Emma Swan, reporter for The Boston Globe.” 

His eyes widened. “The Boston Globe? My, my.” He took her hand and gave a limp shake. “William Smee. What can I do for you Miss Swan?”

“Smee? Like from Peter Pan?”

“It’s quite a common name in the seafaring world.” He shrugged. 

“I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your ship, Mister Smee.” She looked up at the hull of the vessel.

“Aye, she’s not mine, Miss Swan.” He looked back to the ship. “She belongs to the town, a heritage piece. The Jewel of Maine.” 

The name didn’t sit right. She’d never heard of it, though she didn’t make it a habit to research old ships. “It’s such a pretty boat.” She almost snickered. She’d stolen that line from a movie.

“That boat,” he nodded once, “is a one-hundred and seventy-eight ton two-masted brigantine, and if she could talk, she’d curse your existence for calling her a boat. She’s small, but she’s mighty.”

Emma chuckled. “How did the town come by her?”

Mister Smee shook his head. “No clue. Been here as long as I can remember, though she’s rumored to have left Boston Harbor in seventeen eighty-seven.”

“That long ago?” Emma took a few pictures with her phone. “Was it a merchant ship, perhaps?”

Again, he shook his head. “Sorry, I just work on her. You might find out more about her at the town hall.”

Emma gave him a curious look. “You don’t know anything else about it? No unique markings, no historical documents…”

He shook his head, looking uneasily at the ship. “Well, there is one thing,” he gave her a side eye. “She’s haunted.”

Emma snorted. “Haunted? Really?” 

His answering look was sober. “Rumored to be haunted by a pirate. Folks say he stalks the deck in the moonlight in a long black frock coat.”

Emma felt a chill run up her spine. Gooseflesh was surely covering her skin. “A man in black?”

He nodded gravely, his eyes wide. “Aye. The ghost of Cap’n Killian Jones.”

“Have you seen him?”

He looked down, breaking the mood. “Naw, never seen him myself. That’s just what people say, and no one’s ever seen him up close.” He ribbed her and smirked. “Wouldn’t be an old town in Maine without a good ghost story.” 

“Yeah, uh, right.” She gave him a nervous smile. “I always was a sucker for a good ghost story. Gets me every time.”

 

She left William with a promise to return for a tour if she was still in town on Tuesday. She tried to find the library, but the building that housed it was boarded up, beneath a clock tower. The town hall seemed to be the next logical place, if she was to get any information about the disappearances. 

She was more than a little shaken up about the ghost story the dock worker told her. She tended to avoid anything depicting the supernatural, preferring not to think about it or ponder its existence. It was a creepy coincidence to have dreamt about a man in black, and then hear about him. 

She filed that away to lose sleep over later when she walked up the driveway to the town hall. A bulletin board on one side of the driveway was littered with pictures of the missing people in town, along with a few pets. For a small town where nothing ever happened, the residents of Storybrooke must have been shocked to find a potential serial killer on the loose. Stories like this always conjured up visions of movies like Silence of the Lambs, and she gave another involuntary shiver at the thought of some sick creep running around the town. 

She took a few pictures of the bulletin board with her phone, and headed inside the main building. A receptionist was sitting in the lobby, typing on an actual typewriter. 

_Did they still make typewriters?_ Emma wondered.

The receptionist looked up and smiled. “Hi, how may I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Emma Swan, and I’m a reporter for The Boston Globe.” She pulled out her press badge. “I’m looking for some information on the recent disappearances in Storybrooke for a potential news piece.” 

The receptionist took a deep breath. “I’m afraid all we have are just newspaper articles.” 

“Right, but do you know who the acting sheriff is, or if the position of the newspaper editor has been filled?”

“And just who might you be?” A new voice boomed from the hallway, accompanied by the sharp click of heels. A polished brunette appeared and put her hands on her hips. She tilted her perfectly coiffed head. 

“I am Emma Swan.” She held out her press badge. “Reporter for the Boston Globe.”

The woman gave it a quick glance. “Regina Mills.” She sighed. “Mayor of Storybrooke.”

Emma gave her a relieved smile. “I’m here to investigate the recent disappearances in your town.” She tucked her badge back into her pocket and held out her hand. “I’m looking to write a piece for the Globe.” Finally, someone who might know something and give her a start.

Regina shook her hand. “Well, I’m afraid I won’t be much help.” She gave her a sad smile. Something about it seemed insincere. “With our newspaper editor gone, and our sheriff missing as well, you can imagine that we’re short on resources around here.” 

“Right.” Emma definitely smelled bullshit here. “Do you have any reporters or police officers who might be on the beat?” If there was one thing Emma could handle, it was a dirty politician. If this mayor wouldn’t cooperate, she’d find someone who was willing. 

“I don’t think we have any news for you, Miss Swan,” Regina lowered her voice and narrowed her eyes, “And we can solve our own crimes without the help of a big city muckraker.”

Emma sniffed. The term never bothered her before, but something about this woman chafed. She narrowed her own eyes and dug in her heels with her most menacing voice. “Well, then you won’t mind if I do a little sightseeing while I’m here. Y’know, enjoy my stay?” 

The Mayor gave her a saccharine smile. “Not at all. Welcome to Storybrooke.”

As Emma walked away from Regina Mills and the town hall, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her second welcome of the day felt more like a warning than a warm reception. She was willing to bet that the mayor knew something about the disappearances, and Emma was determined to find out what.

 

Regina watched the young woman walk away from the town hall and head south, probably back to Granny’s. She headed back up to her office. This was going to be complicated. She had to get rid of this Emma Swan before she started talking to people. 

 

Without the town hall and the library to fall back on, Emma went back to her room at the bed and breakfast to regroup. She had a little bit of information to go on in the packet she had received, and not for the first time, she wondered where the information had come from. She spread out on her bed and started jotting down notes about the people who disappeared, wrote down questions about connections or patterns in the victims’ behavior, and tried to keep her mind off of the creepy vibe the whole town was giving her. 

So far, most everyone had been kind, but nobody seemed to know anything about the goings on in the town. There had to be a town busybody, or elderly folks who knew everyone and had been in the town the longest. The mayor hadn’t seemed to be much older than Emma, maybe ten years at the most, and there were likely people in the town who didn’t vote for her or disliked her. Emma decided to talk to folks at the local gathering places to try and wheedle out some information.  
She dug into her research, trying to tie up loose ends so her questions were watertight. She decided to make another list of people she would talk to. The dock worker, the B&B owner, and the waitress from this morning might all have some information she could use. 

Her neck was still sore from the night before, and the words on the page were starting to swim, so she decided to take a nap. Emma dug her eye mask out of her suitcase and settled down to snooze. 

When she woke a few hours later, she knew she had slept too long by the nearly irresistible pull to roll over and go back to sleep. If she gave in she would sleep until evening, and then be up all night. That never boded well unless she was doing a stakeout. 

Coming back to consciousness, she was suddenly hit with the feeling that someone was watching her. Her eye mask had gone askew, and she cracked open the eye closest to the bed. It was that feeling; the prickling on the back of her neck, like someone else was in the room. Her heart started to pound.

She quickly whipped off her eye mask and sat up in the bed, looking around the room. Nothing. 

She felt a laugh bubble up in her throat, hysterical now. Less than twenty-four hours in this town and she was going crazy. Maybe some food would do her good. 

There wasn’t much room on the floor, but Emma did some yoga to help her relax, just a few minutes to settle her nerves. She was a little less stressed when she went downstairs to the diner. 

The waitress from that morning wasn’t there, but it was just a little after three o’clock. She figured she could talk to her tomorrow morning. 

Years of unhealthy eating habits after running away from foster homes took their toll. Emma ordered a cheeseburger and onion rings with a chocolate milkshake with whipped cream and cinnamon. She learned early that meals might not be easy to come by, and that inclination was still with her, even after years of having a steady income and enough food in her pantry to feed a small army. She dug into the food with relish.

So focused on her food was Emma that she didn’t notice the young boy until he was sliding into the seat across from her. She looked up at him, brown hair with a face wiser than his years, but still innocent. 

He frowned. “You have lettuce hanging out of your mouth.”

Emma started. “Um.” The lettuce fell down to her plate. She took a large swallow of her food.

“Hi.” He smiled at her, a dusting of freckles smattered his cheeks and nose. “I’m Henry.”

“Hi, Henry.” She furrowed her brow and looked around. “Are you lost?”

“Nope.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Came over to see how you like Storybrooke so far.”

“Um, it’s good.” She set her burger back on the plate and wiped her hands on a napkin. Where were this kid’s parents? The town had a bunch of people missing and this kid was by himself? 

Just then, he looked up to something behind her and over her head. Emma turned around.

A woman about her age was standing to her left, hands clasped over a pink sundress and white cardigan. She wore a matronly expression for someone so young. Her fair skin and pixie cut made her look almost androgynous under such feminine clothes. She extended a hand out to Emma.

“Hi, I’m Mary Margaret Blanchard.” 

Emma took her hand and shook it. “Emma Swan. This your kid?” She nearly cringed. Years of living in Boston and prison before made her rude, she knew.  
But if Mary Margaret was offended, she didn’t show it. “He’s my student.” She nodded over to him. “And he’s not at all shy.”

Emma laughed. “Guess not.”

“Do you mind if we join you?” Mary Margaret gestured to the seat Henry occupied. 

Emma’s every instinct was to beg off, pack up her dinner, and pretend she was busy, but part of being a journalist was talking to people. Besides, she had no desire to head back up to her room and relive the strange feeling she got there. 

“Sure.”

Henry slid down in the bench and Mary Margaret sat down. 

“Are you new in town?” 

“I’m a journalist, actually.” Emma stuffed an onion ring in her mouth. “I write for the Boston Globe.” 

Mary Margaret’s eyes went wide. “Are you here about the disappearances?”

“Yeah, I am.” Emma said around a mouthful of food. “Do you know anything about them?”

“I do,” Henry piped up. “I can tell you about the people who disappeared.”

Just then, the proprietor of the diner appeared. “Two hot chocolates, whipped cream and extra cinnamon.” She set the mugs down in front of Mary Margaret and Henry. 

“Huh.” Emma looked down at her half-finished milkshake, melted whipped cream and cinnamon swirled in. She grabbed the glass and raised it up. “Odd coincidence. I have the frozen version of what you guys got.” She smirked. 

A surprised smile graced Mary Margaret’s already beautiful face. “How about that.” She looked over at Henry, who was beaming up at both of them. “I thought it was just me and Henry, here.”

Henry gave her a sly look. “Yeah, crazy coincidence.” 

They talked about the disappearances for almost an hour. Henry filled Emma in on the editor of the newspaper, Sidney Glass, and the town sheriff, Graham Humbert. Apparently, both frequented the mayor’s house for dinner and drinks. They were friends. A fact that Henry knew, shockingly enough, because he was the mayor’s adopted son. 

“Wow, adopted, huh?” Emma looked down at her napkin. That hit close to home. He looked about the same age as – _no. Better not think about that_ , she thought. 

“Yeah, but I’m hoping to get to know my real mom, someday.” His smile was full of hope, an optimism that came from being young and full of dreams and ideas.

Mary Margaret looked over at him, the same look on her face. “I believe you will, Henry.” She ruffled his hair. 

“I believe, too.” He said. 

She found it difficult to watch the scene in front of her. She too had that same hope that one day, she’d find her parents, or they’d find her. Here she was, now, just shy of her twenty-eighth birthday, and had never found a trace of them. She could feel the walls closing in on her, threatening to overcome her. 

She stood up abruptly. “I really need to get going on these leads.”

“Wait,” Mary Margaret looked up at her, concerned. “I think I know of a place you can start.”

“I’m all ears.”

Mary Margaret pulled out a pen and pad of paper from her purse and started to jot something down. “It just occurred to me that Sidney did a feature article just before he disappeared about a heritage house just on the edge of town.” She ripped off the paper and handed it to Emma. “Here’s the address.”

“What does this have to do with the disappearances?” She’d have to get a copy of that article. 

“It’s just that – well, I thought it strange that nobody lived there.” She pursed her lips and crinkled her brow. “It was a weird article and it was like the house was haunted or something from the way he wrote it.” 

Haunted. Oh joy. “Is there a key?”

“Yep, my mom has it.” Henry piped up. “I can get it for you.”

“Really?” Emma was amazed. “That would be great, because your mom didn’t seem too eager to help out when I saw her earlier.”

“You met my mom?”

“Yeah, she was…she was…” Emma was at a loss for words. This was her kid, and she didn’t want to talk badly about his mom.

“An evil witch?” He supplied matter-of-factly.

“Henry!” Mary Margaret gasped.

“Sorry.” Henry mumbled. He looked up at the clock on the wall. “My mom should be leaving work soon. I can get you the key by tomorrow morning.”

It had come to this. She was accepting help from a kid. Well, she’d done worse for a story. “Sounds good.”

Mary Margaret stood to let Henry out of the booth. 

He shouldered his backpack. “It was nice meeting you Emma. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead he just smiled and waved as he walked out of the diner. 

Emma turned to Mary Margaret and held out her hand. “Nice meeting you, Miss Blanchard, or is it Missus?” She glanced down at the ring finger of her hand. 

“Mary Margaret, please.” She covered Emma’s outstretched hand with her own. “And, no, I’m not married.” There was sadness on her face when she said it, almost like she had lost someone. 

Emma decided not to pry. Maybe she was a young widow.

“Thanks for the tip.” 

“Any time, and if you need anything, just call me. My number is in the phone book.”

Phone book? What was this, nineteen eighty-three? 

“Will do.”

She walked back up to her bedroom after paying her bill, excited to finally get some leads on the case. She still had a few hours until sunset, though, and she wondered how to spend the time. She decided to call her boss and check in. She normally preferred email, but since wi-fi wasn’t happening in this town and apparently everyone still used phone books and read the paper, she figured it would be a few days until she could find an internet connection. She didn’t want to use up her data on her phone, either. 

He answered on the third ring. “Hey, Emma. What’s up?”

“Hey, I’m in Storybrooke and it’s like Stepford or some messed up version of Mayberry or something.”

“Yeah, any leads on the case?”

“A few. Oddly enough, they came from a school teacher and her young student.”

He chuckled over the line. “Sounds good. Dig where you can.”

“Yeah, I’m heading off to some haunted house or something tomorrow.”

“What are your plans tonight?” 

“Well, this town seems to be pretty sleepy and closed up, so I guess watching some TV in my room.”

He hummed.

“Sorry to be wasting the corporate dollar.”

“Eh, don’t sweat it. Take a stroll around, poke your nose in. You still got that lock pick set?”

“The one I’m not supposed to have? Yeah.”

“Well, do a little snooping. Just be safe, okay?”

“Will do.”

They said their goodbyes and she looked out the window at the ships in the harbor. She knew exactly where she could start digging. 

 

Call it a hunch, but she just felt something eerily significant was up with that ship. She watched TV in her room until dusk, and slipped down to the docks. The harbormaster was nowhere to be seen, and there was no one in sight. Most of the lobster boats went out early anyway. She figured she’d have the place mostly to herself.

 _Good_ , she thought. _Better to be unseen._

She shouldered her crossbody and made her way up the side of the ship ladder. The planks of wood creaked and groaned, threatening to give her away. The air was already chilly, the harvest moon low and red in the sky a sinister backdrop against the old ship’s masts and lines. She hoisted herself over the gunwale, careful not to drop down and make too much noise. 

She felt a strange sense of foreboding as she crept along the deck, looking for an entrance to the cabins below. A few sliding hatches graced the deck of the ship, and as she moved toward the quarter deck, she noticed one a bit smaller than the rest on the deck house. She slipped on her kid gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints.  
She tried to slide it open. It didn’t budge. She looked for a lock, and decided to pull out her flathead screwdriver and give that a try. She pried up under the rails, trying to loosen the hardware. Luck was on her side. It loosened enough to be pulled back, pins holding it in place. 

She put them in her jacket pocked to be replaced later, and grabbed her flashlight, then descended the ladder. She slid the cover back in place, making sure she could open it again from the inside.

Tampering the torch end with her hand, she let out just enough light to see her way down. The room was sparsely lit by dim light coming in from the windows opposite the ladder. She could see just enough to note a table in the middle of the room. A washbasin and pegs lined the wall to her right, a bunk to her left. These were the captain’s quarters, she was sure of it. 

What was his name again? Right. Captain Killian Jones.

“Captain Jones,” she whispered. In her mind, she knew she was just trying to reassure herself that the dream she had the night before wasn’t real. Something about being here in this room made her on edge. She had an odd feeling of déjà vu. 

Swallowing down her trepidation, she turned around and walked over to the bookshelves next to the ladder. They were covered in dust. 

_Did anyone ever come in here_? She wondered. The dust was so thick it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in over a decade. The caretaker needed to be fired.

She swept the light over the shelves. Various things littered the surface: candlesticks and holders, knick knacks, a chalice that looked like real gold. There was a pipe on a pipe stand, a small humidor, and some papers stacked next to it. She pulled the papers down, letting a plume of dust into the air.

Yep, definitely hadn’t been dusted in a long while. 

She shook out the dust on the top sheet. It was a crudely drawn map of some kind of building. The handwriting labeling it was beautiful, though. 

_Dungeon_  
_Magical Barrier_  
_Stairwell_  
_Guard_  
_EQ Quarters_  
_Portcullis_  
_Belle_

Belle? It looked like some sort of rescue plan. This was a merchant ship, she thought, but maybe it had been a naval vessel and the Captain made plans to rescue a fair maiden.

Fair maiden. Emma snorted. That sounded like a fairytale. 

She rifled through the papers underneath, coming across a drawing of a rather sinister looking sword or knife with fancy scrolls down it. She turned it to the side, the old English script covering the blade. 

“Rumplestiltskin.” She murmured out the writing. 

“Rumplestiltskin?” She squinted. Wasn’t that a fairytale? Maybe this guy liked to read. When was that story written? Wasn’t it hundreds of years old? Something about a spinner and gold and stealing babies – she couldn’t remember the whole thing. She shook her head to clear it. 

Underneath, there lay a few drawings, seemingly by a different hand. They looked ancient, the paper yellowed and the pencil faded. 

There was a drawing of a few sailors, working on something. It was probably drawn by one of the crew, or the captain or his wife. Emma thought the pieces should probably be preserved in a museum or the Library of Congress. They were a piece of history. Perhaps she could talk to the town about caring for these antique artifacts more vigilantly.

The next drawing was one of a man in profile, and she nearly dropped it. Her heart started to pound as she took in the profile of a handsome young pirate wearing an earring, dark blouse, waistcoat, and dark frock coat with a popped collar. The picture didn’t make him look menacing, however. In the artist’s eye, he was intriguing and pensive. The picture cut off just below the waist, but she could make out the spyglass he was holding (looking into the horizon, perhaps) and the rings that adorned his hands. 

She could only assume the artist was a woman. _A lover, perhaps_? She wondered if this was the Captain Killian Jones that haunted the decks (haunted her room, too). Maybe this was a pirate ship. The timeline fit. It could’ve been any merchant ship taken over by pirates and used to haul goods. There were cannons and guns somewhere on the ship. She decided to do some more digging to maybe find out. A historical piece on the discovery of new information about an old ship wasn’t the worst work she’d ever done.

She placed the pages gingerly back in the order she found them, then looked at the shelf below it. There was a small safe, and she was willing to bet nobody had bothered to open it. The boat creaked and groaned around her, and she cocked her head to listen for anything above. Nothing. 

Emma’s lock pick set was a gift from her boss, August, when she started investigating. She knew how to pick locks, but he preferred a cleaner, more sure method of doing it. She popped the end of the flashlight into her mouth, grabbed her kit out of the pocket of her purse and went to work on the lock. 

It was old, but easily picked by the simplest key bump in the roll. She slid the kit back into her purse and gingerly opened the door. It could be booby trapped for all she knew. 

Inside, she found a few trinkets, a beautiful set of earrings and necklace, several rings (were they the same ones she saw in the picture?), and underneath it all, a large pulley hook. 

That was an odd thing to put in a safe. 

She pulled it out and shined the light on it, finding it strange that something so commonplace on a ship would be given prize place in a small safe in the captain’s quarters. She felt a strange sense of longing for the story behind it, the significance placed on something ordinary had always fascinated her. She wasn’t sentimental, but she felt the sentimentality of this hook as if it were a poignant artifact in a museum. The hook had a key molded into the end that would normally have a loop for a pulley.

She felt that same tingling on the back of her neck from that afternoon. She tried to shake it off, but instead, found herself bringing the curve of the hook to her lips, feeling the cold metal against her skin. 

“It’s bad form, tampering with a man’s hook.”

The clanging of metal as she dropped the hook on the wooden floor deafened her in the space as she spun around, eyes wide and nostrils flared. 

She was stupid, she thought, to have ignored that feeling on the back of her neck, because there in front of the windows stood the man in black, the man from the drawing, and she was sure he was the man who haunted this very ship. 

He wore the same clothes from the night before, his face shrouded in the dark room. He chuckled, a low hollow sound against the air swimming with dust and moonlight. 

She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, her own disjointed breathing sawing through the space between them.

He reached out a hand and walked over to her. She felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web. What was happening? Was this some kind of a trick? Some sick dude dressed up like a pirate stalking her? Who was he? 

She raised the surefire up and finally found her voice. “Don’t come any closer.” She tried not to sound as afraid as she felt. 

“Sorry, love,” came the lilting voice (English? Irish? A little bit of both?) from in front of her. His face was still illuminated now, dark shadows of kohl-lined eyes and pale features, rakishly long bangs swept over his face. He stooped down next to her and she heard the clink of the metal object she dropped. “I’ve been looking for this for a long time.”

He stood up next to her and stepped back to face her, the light of the torch putting his face in full view now. He held up his left arm and smiled at it.

If her eyes could grow any wider, they did, her jaw dropping as she noted that the end of his arm, in the place where a hand would be, was a leather criss-cross of belts and buckles, a brace of some sort. He fitted the bottom of the hook to the end of the makeshift brace. It made a clicking sound and he held it up with a flourish. 

“Hello, Emma.”

She felt faint. How did this guy know her name? 

“Hu-haaaah – “ The sounds came from her open mouth like a bellow being squeezed. 

“How do I know your name?” He was patient, almost. His face softened into a look of tenderness, something akin to sadness. A small smile graced his features. 

She nodded. Words didn’t seem to be forthcoming. She kept the flashlight up in a defensive gesture, but he didn’t make any move toward her. Apart from the weapon at the end of one arm, he didn’t seem threatening at all. 

He held up his hand in a motion of surrender and glanced behind him. “Shall we take a seat?”

“Okay.” This was all a little too freaky for Emma. A guy dressed up like – like Captain Hook was inviting her to sit down for an evening chat in an antique ship. This had the makings of a twisted murder mystery.

One of the chairs was already pulled out, so he gestured to it, and pulled another out for himself. He leaned back and lifted his eyebrow, manspreading in leather pants and a ridiculously long coat. He gestured with his head to the seat she still stood a few feet away from. 

She had a clear shot to the ladder behind her, and she had her gun in her hip holster. So, she sat. 

“I know you’re scared, Emma.” he held out his hand to her and made a comforting motion, almost like someone trying to calm a spooked horse. “But I need your help.” He swallowed, his face somber and pleading. 

“Uh.” She held up her hand and took a few deep breaths, the effects of the dust making her lungs tickle. “Okay. You wanna tell me why you were in my room last night?” 

“I’m sorry about that, I know I must have given you a fright.” His voice was low and calm, and it calmed her. 

“How did you get in my room?”

“Hard to explain.” He looked up at the ceiling in thought and cocked his head. He looked back down at her and smiled. “But I had to see you.” 

“Who are you?” She was defensive now, her hackles raised. Who did this guy think he was, just waltzing into her room? “What do you want with me?”

He leveled her with his gaze. “I’m Killian Jones.” He looked down and gave a sad, wistful smile. “And let’s just leave it at that for now.”

“ _Captain_ Killian Jones?” She asked, incredulous. What the hell was this? She was beyond freaked out now.

He chuckled through his nose and inhaled deeply, a large smile on his face as he shook his head and looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. “Aye.”

“As in, the guy who walks around the deck of this ship at night, Cap’n Jones of the Jewel of Maine?”

He squinted and looked back at her, like he’d swallowed something disgusting. “I wouldn’t call her that, but sure.”

“What would you call _her_?” Emma lifted her shoulder and cocked her head, sarcasm dripping from her voice. This guy was making no sense. He was probably crazy, or a murderer, or both. She’d bet her life savings he was the one responsible for the disappearances. 

Instead, he looked at her with longing. “I used to call her mine.”

Emma’s patience was thin. “Look, pal, I don’t know who you think you are, or what you think this is, but I’ve got stuff to do.” She stood up. “Now, I appreciate this whole seduction scene you’ve got going, but if you’re going to murder me, could you at least just get started?”

He blinked and smiled. “Right to the chase, of course.” He licked his lips and looked over to something sitting on the table in front of him. He reached over and picked it up with his hook and his hand, gingerly setting it down in front of the chair she just occupied. 

He pulled something out of his pocket and reached over to the candelabra in the middle of the table, striking his palm against his hook over the candle in the middle. There was a spark, and the flame caught the wick.

Emma looked down at the object he had placed in front of her. 

She sank back down into the chair and looked at what appeared to be a large, leather-bound book. It was old and faded, gilded scroll-work on edges. The title glinted in the candlelight across the front of the book:

_Once Upon a Time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long time between updates, guys. I'll try to be more diligent about the timeline and update once a week, yeah?


	3. Chapter 3

“What is this?” Emma asked, reaching her hand out tentatively. 

Killian gave her a guarded look. “It’s a collection of stories.” He looked back down at the book. “Fairytales.”

“And?”

He sighed. “It’s complicated, and I thought I had plenty of time to – “ He leaned over the table and carefully placed his fingertips over the book. “Listen, everything you know about this world is finite, but this book is infinite and also very real.”

“Oh, god,” She groaned, slumping her shoulders. “You really are crazy.”

Killian closed his eyes, exasperated. “Swan, it’s not –“

“And how the hell do you know my name?” She shook her head. “Did you send me the information on the disappearances? Are you behind them?” Something about this guy, his casual experience with her person, it irritated her. She was getting impatient with his cryptic talk.

He looked at her straight on. “No. Neither was my doing.” 

Even in the dim light, she could sense his earnestness, but she hedged, still on alert. “You’re lying.”

He smirked, eyes twinkling. “You know I’m not.” 

“Look, I don’t know you, pal, and whatever you think you know – you don’t know me.” She leaned forward and inched her hand down to where her Beretta was on her hip. “You’re either crazy or a murderer or both.” 

He growled in frustration. “Damn it, Emma, I need you to listen to me and believe me. This town is in danger!” He slapped his hand down on top of the book. “I do have a clue about who might be behind the disappearances, finding out for certain depends on you believing that the stories in _this book_ are true.” 

The gravity of his words hit her, something tugging at a deep place inside her. She pushed back. “All I know is that you’re a stalker and I’m gonna give you to the count of three – “ she popped the button on her holster, pulled the .9 millimeter out, pulled the slide back, the safety down, and cocked it in a swift motion – “before I show you just how done I am with your crazy.” This whole town was crazy. She’d get to the bottom of the disappearances, but only after this guy was in jail or a coffin. 

He rolled his eyes. “Emma, love –“

“One.” Her voice was low and unyielding. “I am _not_ your love.”

“I’m not crazy, you can put down the gun.” He shifted closer and lifted his hook.

Emma's eyes widened at the sight of it and her heart pounded in her chest as she began to panic. 

“Two.” A little higher pitched now. _God, why couldn’t this guy just admit he was stalking her?_

The hook glinted in the candlelight. This was it. It was him or her. 

“Emma, your _father_ is –“

She emptied three rounds straight at his chest and closed her eyes tight. The shots were loud in the small room, both hands on the metal grips of the gun pulling down to compensate for recoil. She heard wood splinter and slice as the jacketed hollow point Remington golden sabers ripped through flesh and bone and the wall behind the perp. Four years at the shooting range after obtaining a pistol permit taught her that you only needed to empty three rounds into someone for a kill. Three rounds were all it took to stop a heart at close range. 

The cops would arrest her for trespassing, but they’d understand when they saw a guy dressed up in a pirate getup with a hook for a left hand, who’d been rambling on about fairytales and owning a 17th century ship and her father who’d abandoned her and –

“Feel better?” 

Emma’s eyes shot open, her body beginning to tingle, as she took in the man in front of her. 

She had never shot someone. She supposed the shock of firing the pistol and potentially ending someone’s life was supposed to feel like cold water running down the center of your body. 

But what if he wasn’t bleeding…at all?

She whimpered, her eyes wide, shock bleeding out like she’d been the one who was shot.

“Emma, close your eyes and take deep breaths.” Killian – the undead dead man – stood and leaned over her, concern written all over his face. 

“Don’t touch me!” Whoever or whatever he was, she was certain she didn’t want him close to her. She scrambled, clawing at the floor with her boots to gain traction and slide the chair back. It gave a loud groan against the floor as it dragged. She stumbled out of the chair; still pointing the useless weapon at him like it wouldn’t miss him or go straight through him. 

It was then that she saw the moonlight. 

The moonlight that shone straight through the windows, the skylights at the edge of the room, and straight through the man hovering in front of her. She backed up quickly and hit her head hard on a rung on the ladder. The pain smarted enough to disorient her momentarily, and she lifted a hand from the grip of the gun to her head.

In the distance, she heard shouts and sounds of footsteps running. The translucent figure in front of her grew taller as she realized she was sinking, sinking, sinking down to the floor against the ladder that could have been her escape from him. She was certain, as she saw him lift his head to the hatch of the cabin, that she could feel his cold hand cupping her cheek. She took a few more shallow breaths, certain she was hyperventilating, before everything went black. 

 

Henry was startled awake, dreams of a wolf chasing him on the edge of his subconscious. Next to the windowsill stood a man in a black frock coat with a hook for a left hand. He was holding a large, leather-bound book. 

The storybook.

“How’d it go?” Henry croaked, stretching. 

“About as well as I thought it would.” Killian walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge. 

Henry sat up. “What happened?”

“She tried to shoot me.” 

He tried to move the covers aside and shift his legs over, but Killian shot his hand out. 

“Is she okay?”

Killian nodded. “She’s fine, but she’s going to need bailing out in the morning.”

“Of _jail_?”

Killian snorted, laughing. “Aye. Someone heard the shots and alerted your mum. Regina had her held overnight for trespassing on my ship.”

Henry groaned. “I thought you said you could get her to remember.” 

“I said I’d try.” He held the book out for Henry to take. “Your mother’s a stubborn lass, but I didn’t think she’d try to kill me on the spot.” 

“I guess it’s up to me, then.” Henry sighed. 

Killian stood up and walked over to the window. The moon was hidden behind clouds now. He looked back to Henry. “I believe in you, lad. If anyone can get through to your mother, it’s you.”

Henry smiled and scrunched up his nose. “Yeah, well, when I do will you tell me the whole story?”

“When your mother believes, I won’t have to.” He smiled at Henry. “Now, get some sleep. You’ve got bail to post on the morrow.”

Henry closed his eyes, holding the book closer to him. Emma would believe, and she would stay, and someone would finally love him. 

 

The dream was weird. Emma was dancing in a crowded room, red dress, and handsome stranger. There was a presence, though, of darkness and gray mist in the brightly-lit ballroom. 

Stranger still was the whistling. It started out low, just a background noise, like rain. Then it became more annoying, like someone’s car stereo being played too loud. The whistling reached an earsplitting level, and Emma tried to bend down, but the corset of her dress was restricting her movements. It was almost too real, but with such a dreamlike quality, but –

The whistling.

She blinked, blurry ballroom and blurry bars, like a jail. Then, blinking again, the ballroom vanished and the bars became the central focus. They were in front of her face. 

She sat up. She was in a small cell on a cot, the whistling the only thing she could hear. 

“Mornin’, sister.” 

She looked over to the desk. A rough-looking police officer in plain clothes sat with his feet up on the desk, facing her. He was wearing a beanie, had a gray beard, and a surly look on his face. His arms were crossed over his stout frame. 

Emma sighed and rubbed her neck as she sat up on the bed. This was the second morning in a row she had awakened stiff and sore and not in her bed. She winced as she stretched. 

The night before was coming back to her. 

 

_Emma woke to footsteps above her head. At first, she thought the pirate was trying to escape, but then noticed the soles of shoes descending on her in the dark room, and rolled out of the way quickly._

_“Miss Swan?” A familiar voice called out from behind a flashlight. “What the hell are you doing here?”_

_Damn it. Mayor Mills. She thought up a quick cover story. “I was walking down the pier and heard some noise, thought I’d investigate…” She gestured around the room and at her dust-covered backside. “I got roughed up for my trouble.”_

_“Really?” the mayor said. “You don’t expect me to believe that an investigative reporter was just taking a casual stroll in the dark down by the docks, do you?”_

_“I was looking at the ship.” Emma was incredulous. Gosh, was this woman always this suspicious? “It’s an old ship, I thought it looked cool in the moonlight, I was gonna snap a few pictures with my phone.”_

_“Pictures with your phone?” Now the mayor sounded incredulous. “Right, and what kind of skirmish did you get into?”_

_She tried to stay close to the truth. “Some guy dressed up in a – a Pirates of the Caribbean costume came at me and I fell and hit my head and blacked out.”_

_“Uh huh.”_

_The mayor still held the flashlight at eye level. Emma squinted. “Could you put that thing down for a second?”_

_“Someone heard shots fired and called my home. Are you armed, Miss Swan?”_

_Emma felt patronized by the woman’s repeated use of the name, ‘Miss Swan’. She was irritated. “Yes, and I’m aware of my rights to concealed carry in Maine.” Take that, she thought._

_“Be that as it may, you still fired a weapon on board a historic vessel while trespassing.” She waved an arm around the room. “There’s no perpetrator in sight dressed up like Jack Sparrow.”_

_“More like Captain Hook,” she mumbled. This was going nowhere fast._

_“What?” the mayor deadpanned._

_“The guy looked like a sexed up version of Captain Hook. Black leather coat, brown hair, beard, pirate-y boots, earring, hook for a hand?” The more she tried to describe him, the crazier it sounded. “Got any escaped mental patients running around here?” She was growing impatient with this whole mess. As soon as she could get out of here, she was packing her suitcase and driving back to Boston. Someone else could take the story._

_The mayor dropped the flashlight for a split second before shining it back in Emma’s face. “Nobody by that description, no.”_

_She couldn’t tell in the dark, but the mayor wasn’t being entirely truthful by the way she spoke._

_“I think you need to come with me, Miss Swan.” The mayor swept her flashlight up over the ladder. “After you. Let’s just take you down to the station until we can get this sorted out.”_

_“What? I’m being arrested? For what?” She started toward the ladder._

_She heard the voice behind her. “For trespassing.”_

_“I’m not the cosplayer walking around town right now creeping people out with a creepy fish hook!”_

_Emma sighed. This was going to be fun to explain to her boss when she called for bail._

 

“Do I get a phone call?” Emma’s voice was like gravel. She wondered how hard it was to get a bottle of water. “Maybe some water?”

“I don’t care.” The officer shrugged. “I’m just glad it’s not me in there for once.”

“Huh?” Emma leaned forward and gave him a shrewd look. 

He took his feet down off of the desk and stood up. “I’m not a cop.”

“What are you, then?”

“I’m a janitor at the hospital. Name’s Leroy.” His voice was like gravel, too, with just a hint of a Brooklyn accent. “You came in last night and I was asleep in the cell next to you.” He gestured with his head to the empty bed in the neighboring cell. 

“Where’s the police officer in charge?”

He shrugged. “Don’t have one.” 

“Who arrested you, then?”

“Nobody. Came down here out of habit to sleep it off.”

“What?” Was this guy insane? Maybe this whole town was full of nuts. 

“Better than sleeping in my van, closer than my house, and the station is open twenty-four hours.”

This was the weirdest town in the whole of New England. “So you just slept in the bed and woke up with ‘Whistle While You Work’ in your head and decided to share it with me?” She felt like she was in a Stephen King novel. 

He shrugged again. “I was just curious about why you were in here.” 

“Mayor arrested me for trespassing last night.”

“You new in town?” Leroy furrowed his brow. “I haven’t ever seen you around.”

Emma sighed and walked over to the bars of the cell and leaned on them. “I was investigating the disappearances in town and I got on the wrong boat.” She sighed. “It belongs to the town and Mayor Mills got all bent out of shape.” The wrong boat that just happened to be haunted or she had a hallucination, or something. How hard did she hit her head last night?

He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “God, I hate that woman.” 

Emma lifted her eyebrows. “Yeah, she ain’t my favorite person right now either.” She nodded her chin at Leroy. “What’d she do to you?”

He sniffed. “Nothin’ I can think of. I just don’t like her.”

“Who ran against her in the last election?”

Leroy looked pensive. “No one.”

“She just ran unchallenged?”

“Yeah, I guess. She’s been mayor as long as I can remember.”

That was weird. The woman didn’t look a day over forty. Emma ran her hand over the sore spot on the back of her head. “Can I get some water?”

“Sure.” Leroy stalked over to the water cooler and grabbed a paper cup. 

Two people rounded the corner of the entryway just then. The station was small. They walked through the glass doors and into the hallway. 

“Emma!” It was the kid from the diner yesterday and his teacher. 

“Hey – kid.” She looked up, confused, as they rushed to the bars of the cell. “Mary Margaret, right?”

Mary Margaret smiled at her. “Right, and you remember Henry Mills, my student.” She blinked. “I heard what happened. Are you okay?” She bit her lip and looked awkwardly over to Leroy. 

Emma rolled her eyes. “I’m good. As good as I’m gonna get sitting in a jail cell with a lump on my head after firing three rounds into a wall and missing the crazy guy trying to kill me.” Okay, he hadn’t been trying to kill her, but he was crazy and she had been pretty certain it was heading there. Now that she thought about it, she was sure she had missed. She’d closed her eyes, after all. Amateur move. She’d have to get in more time at the range.

Mary Margaret looked around the room. “Is there anyone here I can talk to about getting you out?”

“Not until an arraignment, I’m afraid.” Emma knocked her head against one of the bars. “Trespassing is a misdemeanor.”

“But surely there was just a misunderstanding.” Mary Margaret shook her head emphatically. “Henry filled me in. You were just doing your job.”

“Ya know, I don’t see anyone else around, so…” Leroy held up a set of keys and shoved them at Mary Margaret. “Here. Knock yourself out.”

“Maybe we should do this the right way,” Emma chimed in. “I’d rather not get on the mayor’s most wanted list my second day in town.”

Leroy shrugged. “Suit yourself, sister.” He twirled the key ring around his index finger and moved to shove it back into his pocket. 

“Wait!” Henry shouted. “My mom, she’s not gonna press charges.” 

Everyone turned to Henry.

“How do you know that?” Emma doubted the mayor would let her off after the display of force last night. “She didn’t seem too chummy when she strong-armed me into this cell last night.”

“I heard her talking to the DA earlier on the phone.” Henry smiled like the cat that ate the canary. “She just wants you to leave town.”

Emma held up her hands. “Well, that makes two of us.” 

“No!” Henry snapped, his eyes wide. “You can’t leave. Who’s gonna investigate the disappearances?”

“Henry’s right, we don’t even have a newspaper editor or a sheriff in this town right now,” Mary Margaret chimed in. “You could help out Storybrooke so much.” She looked eager, expectant.

Emma felt an old tug in her heart. She’d long since been able to recognize it from her childhood, that hollow ache of loneliness. It crept up on her from time to time: when she’d see a mother with her children, when she spent the holidays alone, when friends on facebook posted pictures for mother’s day. It was flaring up now, as she looked at Mary Margaret. 

What was it Neal had said? _You don’t have a home until you just miss it._

That brought her out of it. She shook it off, blinking to clear her head. This town could take care of its own problems. She had a job waiting for her in Boston. She fingered her necklace.

“It’s not my problem.” She shrugged. “I’m not here to make enemies.”

She moved over to the bunk in the cell and sat down, fingering her red leather jacket draped over the pillow. She knew what she’d see if she looked up – disappointment. It was always in the faces of adults when she was a teenager. It was in the faces of lovers and friends when she dismissed them. It was easier this way, being on her own. 

“Well, we’ll just have to convince you to stay.” 

Emma looked up to see Mary Margaret with a slight smile and a determined look on her face. She turned on her heel and started to walk out the door.

Emma stood up and walked over to the edge of her cell. “Where are you going?”

Mary Margaret turned around, steel in her eyes. “To talk to the Mayor about bailing you out of jail.” She beckoned to Henry. “Come on, Henry, or you’ll be late for school.”

Henry looked between Mary Margaret and Emma, and then smiled at Emma. “See you later!” He ran out the door after his teacher.

Emma turned her annoyed stare to Leroy. “So, about that water?”

 

“You want me to _what_?” Regina looked up from her desk. This was the last thing she wanted the Swan girl to do. 

“I want you to release her and have one of the stipulations be that she works on the case.” Mary Margaret stood across the expanse of mahogany, arms clasped in front of her. She was every bit the demure, frail, timid flower Regina had cursed her to be – until now. 

“I have someone working on the case.” Regina smiled tactfully. “None of your loved ones are missing, so it should be of little concern to you.” She cleared her mind of the obvious truth. Nearly everyone missing was not a loved one…of Mary Margaret Blanchard. It gave her a little satisfaction, a break in the monotony of the past twenty-eight years, to be able to dig that knife in a little deeper.

“But this woman can help us,” Mary Margaret persisted. “I’ve been reading about these reporters at The Globe. They take down corrupt officials, they bust crime rings.” Her face was glowing with optimism. 

“Storybrooke may be small,” Regina tented her fingers together, “but we are well able to solve our own crimes, if one was even committed here.”

Mary Margaret looked confused. “What could have happened other than six people gone missing?”

Regina looked around her office and shrugged. “Maybe they went somewhere together, or they moved.” 

“Over the course of six weeks?”

Regina opened her mouth to answer her, but they were interrupted by the sound of heels on the tile outside her office. Marco burst into her office, wringing his hat in his hands.

Regina looked around Mary Margaret. “Yes, can I help you?”

The harried look on his face said it all. “Someone else is missing, Mayor Mills.” He stepped forward until he was standing next to Mary Margaret. 

“Who?” Regina asked, guarded. 

“Archie.”

“Doctor Hopper? Oh, no!” Mary Margaret gasped. 

Henry’s therapist. Regina sat back and stared at her desk for a moment, thinking. There had to be some way she could spin this. She looked up at him. “Is his dog gone, too?”

“I haven’t seen Pongo since yesterday morning.” Marco shook his head. 

“Okay, then can someone who knows him check at home? Maybe he’s camping with his dog.”

Marco nodded. “I’ll check at his house.” He stood there, fidgeting with his hat. “But who is looking into this? The town, me, we’re starting to get worried.” His face was pale. 

Mary Margaret stepped forward and reached out to rub his arms. “Oh, I’m sure something will turn up on him. Take heart, Marco.” He nodded his head again.

This was getting out of hand. People couldn’t panic. “Actually, there’s a reporter here from Boston who I’m going to have on a special task force to investigate.”

Mary Margaret turned her head toward her. “Really?” She smiled. “You’ll keep Emma on the case?”

Regina sighed. “Yes.” She looked back down at her desk. “She’ll be useful, I hope, as long as she can stay out of trouble.” 

It wasn’t a lie. She could keep the Swan girl around and find out just how she got into the town and what she was all about. While Emma was running around playing detective, Regina could keep an eye on her. She might prove to be useful. If she wasn’t, or if she was up to something, she could be disposed of.

“That’s wonderful news, Madam Mayor.” Marco stepped back. “I should go and check for Pongo.”

“Yes, let me know what you find out.” 

Mary Margaret was clasping her hands again and Regina wished she could wipe that wistful grin right off of her face. Perhaps Mary Margaret Blanchard would go missing next. The thought was enough to make her smile at her as she walked out the door. 

 

The worst part of being stuck in a cell with no one to guard over you was needing to pee. Before he left the station, Leroy had given Emma two cups of water, which she’d sucked down. She was definitely reconsidering that as she lay on her side to take the pressure off of her bladder. The thing nobody had told her about having a baby was the toll it would take on her body. She had stretch marks, phantom pains in her back from the epidural, bigger feet, and a weak bladder. The crappy thing was, she didn’t have the cute kid to show for it. 

It was times like these, when she was alone, that she played the what if game. What if she had kept the baby? What if she had made things work and done the single mother thing? These days, the pros outweighed the cons. She would have been able to care for him after college, wouldn’t have been alone all of these years. She crunched numbers and ran over budgets in her head. On the surface, she didn’t regret giving up the baby. Underneath it all, though, she felt fragile and unsteady. She’d been down this road before. If she thought too much about it, she’d sink into a black hole and never come out.

She sighed, and looked nervously around the room. She felt that fragility slipping closer to the surface now, when she was stressed and scared and altogether traumatized. _What had happened last night?_ She wondered. She’d aimed, fired, and the bullets had gone straight through him. She’d reacted to his threats – _Were they threats, though_? He’d mentioned her father. 

She sat up. _Her father?_

This was the part of the crime novel where the protagonist found out that she was the child of a crime boss, or a government official who needed to keep her birth a secret. She was briefly reminded of the TV show Alias. The whole thing just didn’t add up, didn’t make sense. Killian believed what he was saying last night, and it was his version of reality. He had to be the connection to the disappearances. It was obvious. He was a whack job. 

Then there was the mayor, with her suspicious attitude and blatant lies. What the hell was this place hiding? 

Great, she thought. Half an hour ago, she was ready to cut town, and now she was actually running through the case again. She was just too damn good at her job for her own good. 

She heard the sound of a car pull up in the station and she stood up. Moments later, the mayor walked in through the glass door and made her way over to Emma’s cell, eyes on a set of keys in her hand. She stopped short of the door to the cell. 

“Miss Swan,” she said crisply, “It seems we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”

Emma was taken aback, and raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “I’ll say. I come up here to do a little story, maybe help solve a mystery, and the local authority is hell-bent on making it difficult. Sounds a little suspicious to me.” She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, widening her stance. It usually had the effect of intimidating other women. 

But this woman didn’t take the bait. “I can assure you, that wasn’t my intention.” She held her hand up in protest. “It’s a small town, and the disappearances are quite a lot for us to take on.”

“Like I said, I was here to help.” Emma looked chagrined. What she was really doing was playing up the situation so she could have an easier time getting what she wanted, which was to stay and continue the investigation. _Gosh, was she really considering this after the near-murder last night?_

“Well, I hope you take this as an olive branch.” The mayor sighed, unlocked the door, and pulled it open. 

Emma walked through slowly, turning her head to assess the mayor as she walked by. “What about the trespassing charges?”

She shook her head. “No charges, and my apologies for last night. You can imagine how shocked I was to find out someone had discharged a firearm. This town hasn’t had an incident in –“ she looked down and to her left “ – as long as I can remember.”

“Well, it’s a nice little town you’ve got here.” Emma turned to face her fully. She could be diplomatic. “I’m sorry for causing such a fuss, Madam Mayor.”

“Please.” The Mayor held out her gloved hand and smiled through perfect lipstick. “Regina Mills, at your service.”

Emma looked around before taking her hand and shaking it. It sent a shiver up her spine and she had to suppress the urge to jerk her hand back. This woman was insincere, and Emma feared she would cause her no end of trouble if given the chance. She must have wanted something. “What? You’re not gonna stick me back in my car and kick me out of Storybrooke?”

Regina gave her an assessing look. “Not as long as you cooperate with me, don’t go running around in places you shouldn’t.” 

Gosh, this woman sounded practically authoritarian. 

“Alright, well, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.” Emma moved to walk out of the station. She’d have to find her way back to the bed and breakfast. 

“Actually, Miss Swan,” Regina interjected, moving in front of her, “I was wondering if I could give you a ride over to Granny’s and you could fill me in on this person you had the altercation with last night. He sounds suspicious, and I want to make sure the citizens of Storybrooke are safe.”

Well, that was one thing that actually did make sense. “Sure, lead the way.”

 

After Regina dropped Emma off at the diner, she ordered a breakfast sandwich to go and made use of the bathroom. When she walked out the door, she was surprised to see Henry in the hallway. 

“Whoa, beware of lurking children.” She stopped short. “Shouldn’t you be in school, kid?”

“You can’t leave.” He bit his lip and shuffled his feet, widening his stance. He crossed his arms over his chest. It was a move so much like the one she’d given his mom at the station. 

She smiled. “I’m not leaving, kid.” She patted him on the shoulder. “I worked things out with your mom, and we both changed our minds.” He was a cute kid, even if he did seem kind of rebellious.

He looked shocked. “You did?” He looked around Emma, then behind himself before leaning in close to whisper, “You can’t trust her.” 

She was not taking advice from a kid. “Kid, I’m not here to argue with you about your mom. She and I made a deal, and I’ll take it from here.”

He looked nonplussed. “Really? Did she give you the key to the old heritage house?” 

“No, but I’m sure if I ask her –“

He pulled a key out of his pocket and held it up in front of her. “You’re welcome.” 

Emma ignored the smug look on his face as she plucked the key out of his hand and pocketed it. “Thanks.” 

 

Across town, Regina was fuming. 

Just how on earth had Hook gotten past her for nearly three decades? What did he want? 

Emma Swan’s description of the would-be perpetrator was an exact description of the man she knew from the Enchanted Forest, and he’d been nothing but a ghost story for the townspeople for the last twenty-eight years. 

She walked down the halls of the hospital and took the elevator down to the basement. When she walked in, she knew what she would find. Each day had stayed the same since the curse, not that she came here every day. She pulled out her badge and whisked it by the security guard at the desk. He wouldn’t even remember she was here in the morning. 

She walked over to the drawers, feeling the chill and a sense of foreboding about what she might find. _This was the land without magic_ , she thought, and there was no logical explanation for a glitch in the curse she’d so painstakingly crafted for these people. She closed her gloved hand around the knob and pulled on the drawer, not quite sure anymore what she’d find inside. Cold air billowed out in white clouds.

She pulled back the thin sheet. Her eyes widened at the sight, and she checked the toe tag to be sure. 

_J. Doe_

Everything else on the tag was blank. 

There wasn’t a case number, cause or date of death, or a real name, but Regina knew him. 

Killian Jones lay pale and lifeless in the morgue drawer, lips slightly blue, eternal slumber making his countenance appear innocent and adolescent. If the rumors were true and his reputation had held over the years, Captain Hook was the most cutthroat pirate to ever hoist a sail. Here, he appeared harmless and benign, and very dead. 

She should really have had him buried years ago, she thought to herself as she closed the drawer. The room appeared eerie around her, fluorescent lights buzzing over a metal operating table. Autopsy instruments lay covered up next to a two-way mirror. She had dealt with some dark magic in her day, but something about the bodies of the dead still made her skin crawl. 

She made her way through the hospital and back out to her car. She would have to investigate that issue herself, while Emma Swan investigated the disappearances. She knew where to start, but the thought of going to _his_ shop made her cringe. 

But first things first, she needed to get Miss Swan a bit of help on her case. She sighed, putting her car in gear. Nobody had seen Archie Hopper. That made seven people missing, and nobody had a clue of where to start looking. She knew exactly who to go to. 

 

Emma felt refreshed after some breakfast and a shower. She’d probably need another nap later on, if she had time. She followed the directions Henry had given her to the heritage house on the edge of town. The driveway was hidden, blink-and-you-miss-it in the woods, and led to a lovely arts and crafts style mansion tucked far away from the road. 

She didn’t bother hiding her car. The slamming door made the sound of birds intensify as they sought to distance themselves from the intruder. She looked up and around as she walked along the perimeter of the house. She chose the back entrance, and tried the lock. The door swung open with a heavy gait and she stepped into what appeared to be a large kitchen. 

She checked for footsteps on the hardwood floors as she made her way around, through paneled and richly furnished rooms. She felt like eyes were watching her as she made her way up an ornately carved staircase, blinking in the dim light of the upstairs hallway. There were bedrooms to her left, and she checked each door until she came to a study. 

It wasn’t grand like the library downstairs. It looked like someone’s personal den, a few stacks of books scattered around, a large desk and a wing-back chair. The carpets alone must have cost a fortune, she noted as she looked down at the detail of the intricately woven rug beneath her feet. The house was silent around her, footsteps muffled on the floor, as she picked up a few books and thumbed through them. Some of the spines looked old and valuable, but they were well-worn like someone had read them many times over the years. 

Clearly, whoever had lived here was sophisticated as well as affluent. There was nothing here to indicate anything suspicious, however. She did get what Mary Margaret had said about the house, though. It was most definitely creepy. 

The edge of a book on the desk caught her eye. She gasped as she rounded the chair and picked it up. She felt a tingle down her spine.

There it was again, the same book Killian Jones had shown her the night before. She looked up and her heart started to race. He wasn’t anywhere in sight, but she moved quickly through the house and out the back door, locking it behind her. She kept looking around as her heart pounded in her chest, clouds overhead casting the manicured gardens in a peculiar shadow. The hedges loomed around her as she ran across the flagstone out to the driveway. 

She could feel a sting in her hands as they bit into the corners of the book. She kept a tight hold on it as she fished her keys out of her pocket and opened the door, eyes quickly sweeping over the backseat. The old engine rumbled to life as she mashed down on the clutch and put the car in reverse. Her eyes swung over the trees threatening to overtake the driveway, branches feeling like they were reaching out and brushing against the car, even though she couldn’t hear anything. 

She kept the car in reverse until she burst through the trees and onto the main road, and then squealed to a halt. She heard the whine of gears being shifted too quickly as she slammed the car into second, not even bothering with first gear, and shot off down the road. Nobody followed, and she saw the sun shining dimly over the road, glimmering on the wet pavement. Emma looked down to her lap and read the cover again: _Once Upon a Time._

Something was up with this book and its owner. 

 

When she was back in her room with her pistol by her side on the nightstand, she pulled off her boots and sat down to take a closer look at the book. She turned the pages, skimming through one by one, fairytales from her childhood sweeping over her in familiar incantations and script. There were a few she didn’t recognize, and she stopped on one in particular, about a princess and her prince trying to stop an evil queen. There was a painted print of the couple, embraced in a dance. She wore a red dress and had blonde hair, and he wore a gold frock coat and had brown hair. They only had eyes for each other. 

The story seemed vaguely familiar, like she knew it once upon a dream. She read the names of the couple in the story: Prince Charles and Princess Leia. She smiled. _So that’s where George Lucas got the name from – an old story._

The picture seemed to lighten her mood a bit, and she smiled at the couple in the picture, running her fingers over the tresses of the princess and the lapels of the prince’s coat. There was that ache again, that tug in her heart. It was why she didn’t read fairytales anymore. She’d stopped hoping for her happy ending. 

She sighed and closed her eyes, willing herself to get on with the business of the investigation. She started flipping through the pages again, keeping her thumb marked on the story so she could read it later. The story of a farm boy and another princess caught her eye. Snow White and Prince Charming, but not in the way she remembered it as a kid. Maybe these were closer to the originals, or better yet, a spoof off of the originals. 

A knock on her door brought her out of her trance. She closed the book and marked the page with a comment card from the nightstand, then quickly shoved it under the bed. 

She called out, “Who’s there?”

“Miss Swan,” came the muffled yell from the hall, “It’s me, Regina Mills.”

Emma opened the door to a very pleased-looking Regina. Behind her stood sharply-dressed man with a scarf around his neck; he wore dark clothes and a bored expression on his face, dark hair and eyes. 

“Can I help you?”

“Actually, I came to help you.” Regina smiled even wider. She gestured behind her. “Emma, I’d like you to meet Jefferson Milliner, a local cartographer. He’s going to help you with your investigation.” 

Emma stepped into the hallway and shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mister Milliner. A cartographer – so you make maps?”

He took her hand and smiled at her, eyes twinkling. “Amateur cartographer, Miss Swan, and you can call me Jeff.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, great news! The next chapter is halfway finished, because this one was getting to be a monster, and I had to figure out where to stop it. I'll have the next chapter up in less than a week. Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

The morning fog coming off of the bay appeared to glisten around the wharf, catching sunlight in the early morning like layers of window panes. It was a calming, surreal feeling to stand on saturated wood and breathe in the heavy air. Coffee in hand, Emma watched as seagulls flew in with small crabs and clams, banging them against the pier for their morning repast. She found the ritual comforting, as grisly as it was, in a town that was changing and becoming more chilling by the hour. So, she stood on the periphery of another misty morning and steeled herself for the discomfort of another grueling day.

It had been almost a week since a seventh person had disappeared, the town psychologist. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, made the shadows more sinister, the nighttime bitter, as autumn sank its soft claws into the edge of summer. Emma and Jefferson had commandeered the library as a hub to work out the kinks in her investigation. They had worked out a pattern: at first, the citizens of Storybrooke disappeared over the course of three weeks.

The first person was a pregnant teenager, and the disappearance had caused quite a stir; the local sheriff had rallied a search party, even one of the girl’s step-sisters had gotten involved. The father was dead; there was apparently no other family other than an estranged step-mother and two step-sisters. There was talk that she skipped town, which the boyfriend seemed pretty shaken up about. His father was suspect in Emma’s mind, however, since he seemed happy to be rid of the problem she presented to their lives.

Emma snorted and shook her head, bringing the cooling coffee to her lips for a sip. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was pious jerks that looked down their noses at single mothers like they were lowlife miscreants and not in need of a hand up. She felt her face getting red with anger on behalf of the girl. Wherever she was, Emma hoped she was safe.

She turned to walk back toward the library, mind shifting to the other disappearance. That one was far more bizarre, occurring two and three weeks after the first. The puzzle? It was a married couple. Even more peculiar were the circumstances surrounding their disappearance. The wife was the first of them to have disappeared. The husband went missing a week after, but the insane thing was that he shouldn’t have been able to.

David Nolan was a coma patient in long-term care at the hospital.

Strong emotions came over Emma like a brisk wind whipping at her curled locks. She felt a poignant sense of responsibility for the little town. The more time she spent on the case, getting to know the inhabitants and the missing persons, the more connected she felt to the outcome. The sky around her appeared a bit darker for a moment, clouds appearing seemingly out of nowhere to threaten heavy rain. The whole scene made Emma draw in a sharp breath, wide eyes scanning the buildings around her for something – she wasn’t sure what.

“Good morning!”

Emma turned, startled to see Jefferson walking towards her from across Main Street. She waved to him, despite the unsettling vibe she got from his presence. There was something about the guy, maybe he was a hermit, but he had awkward social skills. He stood too close to her, and sometimes she caught him staring at her while they worked. He hummed strange tunes sometimes, and he had some pretty odd body language -- like a cat or a languid tramp. She wasn’t thrilled to be saddled with his presence every day, but he did usually leave after school let out -- something about watching the neighbor’s kid.

He held up a pastry box. “Donuts.”

Emma fiddled with the lock on the door before pulling it open as she looked back at him. “Thanks.” She followed him in the small room of books that passed for a library. “You know, you don’t have to bring breakfast every morning, I could chip in or eat at the diner.”

Jefferson shrugged. “I’m happy to be of service, since you won’t let me bring you coffee.” He smiled, setting the box down on the table they were working at and shrugging out of his jacket. He never removed his scarves, though, complaining about a sore throat. He was peculiar, but useful when it came to maps of the area and information about the town residents.

Emma had learned that Jefferson was independently wealthy, living in a large house on the edge of a sprawling suburb. Like anyone of considerable means and no occupation, he filled his days with hobbies, one of which was walking the area surrounding Storybrooke and making maps of his findings. They had gone on a few hikes into the surrounding woods, but nothing came up that would arouse her suspicion. There was a hunting cabin in the woods southeast of the town, but a quick perusal there showed that the place had been uninhabited for quite some time.

So, on they went, pulling census records of the town and virtually anything they could get their hands on about the missing residents. Emma was looking into one of the alleged victims, but there wasn’t much to go on. How could a patient locked in a psych ward go missing when hospitals had surveillance systems everywhere, locked doors to keep patients with mental illnesses from hurting themselves or others? She chewed her fingernail as she looked over the file in front of her.

The woman’s picture showed a disheveled young woman with long auburn hair. Lacey French had been arrested for disorderly conduct and public drunkenness a few times, was diagnosed with co-morbid mental illnesses (none of which were listed), and underwent psychological treatment at the hospital. The same hospital, Emma pondered, that David Nolan had disappeared from. There had to be a pattern there.

She made a mental note to talk to Regina about surveillance videos from the hospital. She tapped her pen on the paper, looking up at Jefferson. He was leaning against the counter, flipping through a children’s book. Emma peered at the familiar cover: _The Cat in the Hat._

“Childhood nostalgia?” Emma smirked.

He looked up at her like he’d been caught doing something suspicious. “Uh, no. I just -- I don’t think I’ve ever read this book.” He grimaced and looked back down at it.

“Really?” Emma’s eyebrows shot up and she leaned back to stretch. “I thought that book was a rite of passage, like ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ or ‘Alice in Wonderland’.”

He yanked his head up and gave her a sharp look. “I hated Wonderland.”

Emma yawned. “Yeah, it was pretty trippy. I don’t really remember much except the movie.”

“There’s a movie?”

Emma laughed and took a sip of her cold coffee. “Yeah, Disney? The Cheshire cat? The mad hatter? The Queen of Hearts? _Off with his head?_ ” She gestured with her hand across her neck in a cutting motion.

He dropped the book, then looked down at it, startled. When he picked it up and looked back up at her, his eyes were wide and he looked almost frantic. He licked his lips nervously. “Uh, nope, sorry. Never saw it.”

Emma’s stomach felt uneasy. They were discussing a children’s movie, and she was pretty sure he was lying to her. What reason would he have to lie about having seen a stupid movie? She chalked it up to another one of his creepy oddities.

Her phone rang, breaking her out of her thoughts. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the caller: _August._

“Hey.”

_“Hey, yourself. Haven’t heard from you.”_

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Emma stepped outside. “I’ve been trying to dig into this case.”

_“No luck?”_

“Well, it’s just that there’s not a lot of information on the circumstances surrounding the disappearances.” She held the phone between her ear and shoulder while she filed down her thumbnail on the brick of the building. Something rumbled in the ground beneath her feet. Tremor? She looked around. “I’ve got a little help, and at least the mayor is being more cooperative, but other than a few whack-jobs, there hasn’t been a break yet.”

_“Whack jobs? You staying safe up there?”_

“I had a close call with some guy dressed like an eighteenth-century pirate trying to tell me that fairytales were real.” She still shuddered at the recent memory, and sleep had been sporadic with that feeling of being watched every night creeping into her consciousness. She’d taken to catching a cat nap every afternoon. “Don’t worry, the local authority knows about it and she’s looking into it.” In truth, Regina Mills had done very little to help on that front. She seemed more interested in the missing people than the safety of the reporter trying to crack the case.

_“You’ve got your pistol on you, right?”_

Emma thumbed the holster on her hip. “Yep, it’s never far.”

_“Listen, if stuff starts getting weird up there, call me, and I’ll ride up there to help out.”_

“Nah, I’m good so far. Thanks for the concern, boss man.” She smiled. August was the closest thing she had to a friend in Boston. It was nice to have someone looking out for her, even if he was a tyrant of an editor.

Jefferson chose that moment to come out of the library. Emma turned around and he waved goodbye, handing her his notes and a few places on the maps they might try out the next day. She mouthed, “Thanks,” and went back to her conversation with August.

They talked shop for a few more minutes, brushing up on what the rest of the team was up to, talking per diem and August nagging Emma over expense sheets. She looked up as she was saying her goodbyes to see a few kids hopping off of a school bus.

Henry Mills waved at her and walked over to her, ushered by a crossing guard. His backpack bobbed under the weight of school books, his pea coat and scarf adding to his carefree life as a child who was well-taken care of. She sighed, wondering what sort of life her own kid might have right now. Was he getting off of a bus, lunchbox in hand, school uniform scuffed up from playing on the playground?

“Hey, Emma,” he greeted, stopping with a hop in front of her.

“Hey, kid.” She slipped her phone into her jacket pocket and gave him an indulgent smile. She wasn’t normally fond of kids, usually shying away when co-workers brought their kids to the office, but Henry wasn’t so bad. As ten-year-olds went, he was, well…nice. He wasn’t quite the age when kids started being rude to adults because they thought it was cool, and he wasn’t bratty like a lot of other kids his age. If anything, she recognized another lonely soul in Henry. She never really saw him with any other kids in town.

Not that she had a good curve to grade on, growing up in foster homes, the kids were usually either mean or creepy quiet. She was somewhere in the middle growing up, really just trying to get by until she either found a family who liked her enough to keep her, or pissed off enough foster parents to be labeled a troublemaker and left alone to age out. In the end, she did neither.

Emma sighed, trying not to dwell on her own sad excuse for a childhood. “Whatcha up to today?”

Henry looked peeved, squinting one eye as he shrugged. “I’m grounded, so nothing.”

She gave him a look that indicated she was getting too close to thirty to conspire with him. “Sucks. Sorry.”

“I earned it.” He screwed up his face. “Besides, my mom works a lot these days with the sheriff missing, so she doesn’t really get the chance to enforce it.”

“Nice. Capitalizing on your mom’s overtime.”

If he caught on to her sarcasm, he didn’t show it. “Yup. So, wanna go to Granny’s and get something to eat?”

She was momentarily taken aback by that. Since when did she become Auntie Em? “That’s sweet, but you’re a little too young for me.”

“Well, it’s just that,” He looked around them on the sidewalk, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the town, and I was hoping to get a chance to do it before someone else goes missing.”

She sobered at that. “Yeah? You know something you’re not telling?”

He smiled enigmatically. “Plenty.”

______

Regina walked briskly over the damp planks of the wharf, and stopped in front of the ship that had garnered so much interest from Miss Swan. Jefferson had been able to gather very little information on her. The thought of someone new being able to access Storybrooke and raking over the town was grating on her nerves. No one should have been able to cross that town line.

She walked up the gangplank and slipped under the rope that hung across the gunnel. Wind whipped through her cropped hair, and she reached a gloved hand up to smooth the pieces in place, a moment of nostalgia for her long locks in the Enchanted Forest. She’d cursed Snow White with severely shortened hair ( _the fairest of them all_ ), but also cut her own. For her, it was a fresh start – a new beginning.

Walking over the deck, she took a moment to admire the craftsmanship of the well-made ship. It had certainly been kept well over the last twenty-eight years, and fit in with the charming look of a small seaside town. She slid a hand over the wheel and etchings in the wheelhouse, looking portside and starboard as the directions indicated.

In the short time she knew him, Killian proved to be a resourceful and clever ally, even if he did manage to infuriate her with his smug bravado. Her investigation proved to be fruitful just before the curse, when his weakness for revenge overrode his melancholy over his father. Fruitful, indeed, when he was able to rid her of the only hindrance she could have had while trying to exact her own revenge.

She pulled the card out of her pocket, looking around to check and make sure no one was watching as she wedged it between the wheel and wheelhouse, where the image of a sugar-skull sat in the center of the queen of diamonds. It was an old bicycle pack she’d found in Henry’s bedroom. If Hook was here, in any physical sense, he would be sure to see it.

______

“You’ve been here a week.” Henry sipped the root beer float in front of him. “Notice anything strange going on?”

“Half a dozen missing people counts as strange.” Emma licked butter from the grilled-cheese sandwich off of her fingers.

Henry looked around them at the diner. “Ever notice how people tend to do the same exact thing every single day?” He turned and looked at her conspiratorially.

“Uh, no.” She wasn’t following. She looked around at the patrons eating, talking, ordering food. “What do you mean?”

“Watch the people around you. They do the same things at the same time every single day.” He raised his eyebrows for emphasis.

“What, like Groundhog Day? Stepford Wives? That creepy episode of Doctor Who with the red worm alien thing?” Sure, the town was creepy, but it wasn’t the Twilight Zone.

He sighed heavily, and gave what passed for a level gaze. She really couldn’t tell, since he was too young to really have seen any of those shows. He wouldn’t know. “Look, I really hoped we would have more time for this, but I have to do this my own way.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Storybrooke is cursed.”

Emma gave him an indulgent smile, crinkling her eyes. “Halloween’s not for another month and you’re already starting with ghost stories? You’ve got a good imagination.”

His eyes widened in earnest. “No. Storybrooke really is cursed, and people really do the same thing every day at the same time, but that’s not the worst part.” He spread his arms out for emphasis. “The whole plan went wrong.”

Emma just sat and ate her soup. “Mmhmm?”

“Look, I know you don’t believe me,” Henry flattened his palms against the table, “but you were supposed to come here later, and break the curse, and bring back all of the happy endings.”

She felt a tingle on the back of her neck, and took a deep breath to fight the urge to turn around and look to see if anyone was behind her. Happy Endings, curses, Once Upon a Time… It all felt a little too much like the stuff the pirate guy was spouting.

Henry wasn’t lying that she could tell, but then again, neither had the crazy guy.

“Well, that’s the funny thing about curses,” she made her voice as even as she could without wavering, “Someone always casts the curse.”

His eyes grew even wider and he gasped. “I know who did it.”

Emma looked around the room, trying to ignore the goosebumps on her arms. “Really? Who?”

“My mom.” Henry swallowed. “My mom is really an evil queen.”

“Evil queen?” She hunched down over her plate. “Like, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?”

“Exactly the same person.”

“And who am I? Rapunzel?” Emma batted her eyes for effect. Part of her was just playing along, but part of her was deeply disturbed that a kid made up stories about how his mom was evil and cursed a whole town. What kind of woman was she? More importantly, what kind of issues did this kid have?

“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “You’re Snow White’s daughter.”

She smiled. “Really? The daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. Who’d have thought?”

Emma often made up stories as a child about where she came from. She was an alien like Superman and one day she’d find out she had superpowers. She was a princess abandoned by her parents under threat of their kingdom. Her parents were poor and would come back for her when they had enough money. All of those theories always had a common theme to them: Emma was wanted by someone, and they would come back for her; they were just waiting for the right time.

Perhaps that was what Henry was doing: making up a nice story to replace the life he didn’t have. Maybe Henry’s adopted parents weren’t very loving or didn’t spend much time with him. She hadn’t seen them together, and Henry didn’t talk about his dad at all.

“So, who’s your dad in the story? An evil wizard?”

His face fell slightly, but he replaced it with a cautious smile. “My mom isn’t married.”

“Oh.” Emma bit her lip. “Sorry.”

“The guy she loved died a long time ago.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

His face lit up again. “That’s why she cast the curse. Because she hated Mary Margaret for destroying her happiness with the man she loved.”

“Mary Margaret?” Emma hooked her thumb toward the window. “Like your teacher?”

“Yes!” He was practically bubbling over with enthusiasm. “Mary Margaret is really Snow White.”

People were starting to turn their heads. “Keep your voice down.” Emma didn’t want them to think she was crazy.

“Sorry.” He leaned forward. “But now, it’s all ruined, and you have to find the missing people.”

“What do the missing people have to do with Snow White and the Evil Queen?” She was getting a little tired of playing along.

“Because Prince Charming is your dad.” He paused for effect, his eyes wide again, and he whispered, “David Nolan.”

“David Nolan, the guy who’s married and in was a coma?” She needed the check, because this kid was getting silly. She looked over to where Granny was serving a few patrons and tried to get her attention.

“See, and you thought you were an orphan.” Henry leaned back in the booth and crossed his arms over his chest.

That stopped Emma cold. “How did you know I was an orphan?” She swiveled her head back around to him.

“I – uh…” His mouth was wide open, and he snapped it shut.

“Listen, kid, things like that aren’t funny. I don’t know how you found that out, but – “ She fished around in her pocket for a few bills and laid them down on the table. She was half embarrassed to be upset at a ten-year-old kid for making up stories, but she wasn’t about to let people she didn’t even know start making fun of her. She grimaced as she stood up. She was really starting to like Henry. “That should cover my food and your float. Bye, kid.”

“Emma, I’m sorry, wait –“ He got out of the booth and made to follow her.

Just then, the door of the diner opened and Regina Mills walked in. She looked around and her eyes landed on Henry and Emma.

“Henry, what are you doing here?” She walked quickly over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “You are grounded, and that means no after school snacks at Granny’s.”

Emma looked around at the patrons. Nobody met Regina’s eye or even looked up from what they were doing. She walked out of the diner with a very sullen-looking Henry, and the people continued as if she hadn’t walked in.

_Tough break, kid._

She walked up to her room, hoping to catch a movie on television, but she sat on the bed and took her boots off, and was immediately drawn to the storybook she’d tucked underneath. She opened the pages to the story of Snow White, and noticed again the unique way the story was told. She read the account of how Prince James had been engaged to Princess Kathryn, daughter of King Midas, but fell in love with the bandit princess who stole his heart and his mother’s ring.

Emma smiled as she flipped back to read more of Prince James’ story, finding the tale of King George and his wife who couldn’t have children, so Rumplestiltskin had procured one. They named him James, and he was a great dragon-slayer, but he died suddenly. The king had gone back to Rumplestiltskin, and the Dark One had procured another child for them, for James had a brother. Emma gasped as she read the name of the farm boy who would become Prince Charming.

His name was David.

That same gooseflesh crept up her arms and prickled the hairs on the back of her neck, just like it did in the diner. She shivered and snapped the book shut, then grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

______

Regina sighed, closing the door to Henry’s room. He was tucked in for the night.

She had gotten nothing from him during dinner, and his silence was really starting to wear thin. She didn’t have anyone but him in this town now. She usually kept a pulse on his day, on the people he interacted with, through the conversations they’d have after school. Lately, however, Henry was distant and having trouble, and the only person he seemed to open up to was his therapist. Now, even Doctor Hopper was gone.

She toed her shoes off in the closet of her bedroom and grabbed a pair of pajamas out of her dresser on her way to the bathroom. Perhaps a nice hot bath and a glass of wine was what she needed to take the stress off of the day. Before, she’d have Graham to give her a massage or foot rub after a long day, but he was gone now, and she didn’t know –

Regina stopped short, blood cold.

Killian Jones was standing in front of her window. She walked backwards and closed the bedroom door quietly.

“Hook.” She smiled succinctly.

“Your majesty.” He nodded to her and walked toward her.

“We need to talk.”

“I suppose.” His smile was patronizing.

Regina lifted a hand up and reached out. She ran her hand through his image. He felt like cold, damp air. “Interesting.”

Killian stepped back to pull the playing card she’d left earlier from thin air.

She narrowed her eyes and asked, “How’d you do that?”

He gave her an inscrutable smirk. “Magic.” Stepping forward, he reached out with it between his index and middle finger. “Milady.”

She plucked it from his fingers, already annoyed at his showmanship. “I hear you’ve been terrorizing the tourists.”

His face shifted instantly to a frown. “Not quite.”

She took a deep breath before looking down at the card in her hand. “Miss Swan, a reporter from the Boston Globe, got quite the terrifying tour of the Jewel of Maine a few nights ago.” Regina narrowed her eyes and looked up at him. “Seems there was a ghost on board spouting nonsense about fairytales.”

Killian averted his eyes and hooked his thumb in his belt. “She was snooping on board my ship. I wasn’t in the mood for visitors.” He stuck his tongue in the corner of his mouth like a petulant child.

“Did she find anything?”

He held up his hook and met her gaze. “Just this. I restored it to its rightful place before she could nick it.”

“How?” Regina moved forward, reaching out to grasp his namesake. It felt real, solid, when just moments ago the rest of him slipped through her hand. “How can you move the physical pieces in this realm without magic?” She narrowed her eyes and held up the playing card, the bicycle emblem in the corner of her eye as she examined him.

He gave her a matter-of-fact look and shrugged. “I’ve had nearly three decades to practice. I was a ghost when I came to this realm, and after a few years, I found that I could move things if I focused my emotion –“

“Like magic.” She gasped.

Hook nodded. “Like magic, but a bit more difficult in this realm. It’s quite easy now.”

“But you were alive the last time I saw you in the Enchanted Forest, when you – “

“Aye.” He glared at her, effectively quieting her train of out-loud thought.

“Are you the reason my subjects have been disappearing?”

“I rather thought that was your area of expertise.”

Regina narrowed her eyes. “You’re aware of this. Do you know who might have done it?”

He shook his head. “I’m as perplexed as you are about that recent development.”

“But you’ve succeeded in killing your nemesis in this realm, I see.” Regina turned around and walked over to her night stand, pumping lotion onto her hands and rubbing it in. She looked at him over her shoulder.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Have I? What makes you say that?”

She sat on the bed and ran her smooth hands over the duvet. “Because Rumplestiltskin either didn’t come over with the curse, or you got your revenge as soon as you could when you got here.” Her sharp gaze met his. “He isn’t in Storybrooke.”

His face remained impassive. “I daresay he must be dead, then, Your Majesty.”

Regina was awestruck. She always wondered if Killian Jones had been the one to do Rumplestiltskin in. She felt an odd sense of relief. He wasn’t alive to pull everyone’s strings – her strings. He was really gone. “Did you kill him?”

“If I killed The Dark One, I wouldn’t be a ghost, would I?”

“True,” Regina mused. “Being a ghost must have its advantages.” She traced the hem of her pants. It was really a shame that he wasn’t alive. With Graham and her mirror gone, she was lonelier than ever. At least in this realm, she could pretend at a relationship.

“Not really.” Hook squinted and looked up at the ceiling. “I haven’t seen the sun in twenty-eight years.”

“You can only come out at night, then?” That wasn’t very useful for spying on Miss Swan.

“Aye.” He nodded.

“Where do you go during the day?” She was curious. She knew little about ghosts, having never had an experience with one. “Are there other ghosts here?” Her father, perhaps? Regina perched on the edge of the bed.

Killian bit his lip. “I’ve no clue. Sleeping, I suppose.” He looked evasive. “There are no other spirits here that I’ve encountered.”

“Hmm.” Regina pondered that for a second. “Do you have some sort of unfinished business here – is that why you haven’t, uh,” she waved her hand in his direction, “moved on.”

He fixed her with a sharp look. “I don’t know.” He took a deep breath and pinched his nose. “What do you want from me, Regina?”

She’d struck a nerve. “Ooh, Regina, is it?” She stood up and ambled over to him. “No, ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Madam Mayor’?” She swirled her finger in the cool mist of his chest. “Where are your manners, pirate?”

He stepped back toward the window. “I came when you called. My civility is reaching its limit.”

Regina shrugged. “It’s not like you have anywhere else to be.”

Killian gave her an exasperated look.

“What I want from you is simple, Hook.” She put her hands on her hips. “I need you to keep an eye on Emma Swan and report back to me if she finds anything out on your watch. Nobody should be able to cross into Storybrooke; the curse protects this town from all outsiders.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“That’s it? No sassy quips or one liners?”

He waved his hand in front of him. “I’ve nothing else to do, and frankly, I’m bored.”

“Try to stay out of sight this time.” She rolled her eyes and cocked her head. “We don’t need her shooting up the town.”

Killian looked annoyed. “It’s not my fault she shot at a dead man.” He huffed. “I’ll do my best, aye?”

Regina licked her lips and looked down at his attire: Enchanted Forest. “How exactly did you die, Hook?”

Killian blinked once and scratched at his sideburn, looking off to the side. “That’s a story for another time, Regina.”

In an instant, he was gone.  


______

Emma sat in her room after channel surfing, looking over the maps, writing on her laptop. The story was coming along as a vague prose. She was spinning it as a murder mystery, with the townspeople missing and the mayor uncooperative. The gloom surrounding the town in the last few days added to the unique twist she was putting on things.

Writing hadn’t always come easy to Emma. Her professors at Arizona State were diligently supportive, however, and Emma pressed on, worked hard to earn her place there. The small scholarship she received that kick started her career was a blessing, a small opportunity that the universe gave her to get things right. August had given her that again at the Globe, by taking her under his wing, and she wouldn’t let him down. He was a tough boss, but he was a good writer, and he pushed Emma to believe in herself.

She was poring over her rough draft, pen clenched in teeth, a flask of whiskey next to her, when a knock came at her door. The marks in her plain black Bic pen stuck briefly to her teeth as she startled, then pushed herself up off of the bed. She glanced in the mirror over her dresser briefly to right her hair and make sure her bra straps weren’t showing under her tank top.

Henry Mills was standing in the hallway. 

Emma peeked over to the alarm clock on her bedside, then opened the door to look down at the mayor’s son. “It’s almost ten o’clock. Shouldn’t you be in bed at home, kid?”

He hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I upset you earlier, Emma, but we got off to a wrong start.” He shifted his backpack over his shoulder.

“Oh. Okay.” She shrugged. “You gonna tell me how you know I’m an orphan?”

“Yeah.” He shifted nervously.

“Is something wrong? Is it your mom?”

He grimaced and licked his lips. “No, it’s me.”

“Then tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help you.”

Henry took several deep breaths and looked her in the eye. “I’m your son.”

Emma’s eyes went wide, and she blinked. “Whoa. Um. I don’t – I don’t have a son.” She shook her head as he walked past her into the room.

She stood there with the door open as he turned around and said, “Ten years ago, did you give a baby up for adoption?”

A high-pitched whimper escaped her throat, her eyes wide as she took him in. Brown hair like – “No,” she whispered.

“Last week, someone came to your cubicle at your work and left a package on your desk – a package about Storybrooke and the missing people.”

“Uh –“

Henry stood at the foot of her bed, laptop open a few feet from his short frame, holding his backpack in his hand. His face was severe as he nodded once. “That was me.”

Emma closed the door and leaned heavily against it. There had to be some other explanation. “Look, kid – I don’t know what kind of game you think this is, but –“

He stepped toward her. “You were wearing a gray pantsuit that morning and your red leather jacket as you got off the train. You were wearing headphones. I tracked you down online,” He looked down, unzipped his backpack and pulled out a piece of paper, handing it to her, “I took the bus to Boston and found you so you could come here and help.”

Emma took the paper. It was a printout from a website people used to track their parents. She’d used something similar in the past to try and locate hers. It was there in front of her, in black and white.

_Mother: Emma Swan_

Her address and personal information were also there on the sheet.

That explains how he tracked me down, she thought.

She looked up at him and she could see it: his eyes, his hair, his chin. Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed and trapped, and she shoved the paper back to him, walking towards the bathroom.

“I need a minute,” She called out as she slammed the door and slumped against it.

Her eyes looked back at her in the mirror as she flipped on the light, welling with tears at the knowledge that this – that her son had tracked her down and given her the information for this case. It was like something out of a movie, and she closed her eyes, taking in deep breaths to keep from passing out. Stars began forming on the edge of her vision, saltwater spilling, skin tingling.

All she ever wanted was standing on the other side of that door.

The years of grief, the ache that no one told her she would feel, the depression and anger and guilt she felt from giving him away, it all came rushing over her at once. Wave after wave of needles-like shards of ice ripped at her heart, and she could feel emotion welling deep within her.

_I can’t be a mother._

_I don’t know how to do this._

Suddenly, she heard a ‘pop’ and looked up, the vanity light over the mirror bursting and sparking before the room went completely dark.

“Emma?” She startled at his knock at the door. “Are you alright in there?”

“Yeah.” Her voice came out small and timid, like a little girl.

She rinsed her face in the dark room and fumbled around for the doorknob.

Henry was sitting on the edge of her bed going through the storybook.

“Emma?”

“Yeah, kid. I’m okay.” _I’m not okay. I don’t know what to do._

He looked up, a puzzled expression on his face. “Good, because I have a question.”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, prepared for the inevitable. “Sure.”

“Where did you get this?” He held up the storybook.

She was momentarily taken aback. “Oh, um. I got it from the Heritage House a few days ago when I went out there.”

He looked stunned and set the book back down, leaning over and pulling up his backpack. It was open and he pulled out a large leather book, nearly identical to the one she had. He set the doppelganger down next to it.

“That’s really weird,” Henry mumbled, flipping through the book he brought with him.

“No, it’s just another copy. I’m sure there are thousands of them all over the world.”

He looked up at her, eyes wide. “No, this book is special.”

Emma tried to smile and failed. “Did your mom give it to you?” She grimaced and tried not to start crying again.

He shook his head. “My teacher, Mary Margaret did. I thought it was the only copy.”

Emma shrugged. “Well, cool. Now we both have one.”

He flipped to the back of the book. “Yeah, it’s weird, though. Some of your pages are ripped out.” He fingered the torn edges of a few pages.

Emma nodded and slipped her hands in her back pocket. “Does your mom know you’re here, by the way? It’s awfully late for you to be out.”

Henry pursed his lips and took a deep breath. He slammed the book shut and looked at her sharply. “I don’t think we should tell my mom about this yet.”

“About what?”

“About you being my real mother.”

Emma was perplexed. “Why? It’s not like I’m a threat or anything.”

“But you are, don’t you see?” Henry looked at her earnestly.

“No, I don’t.” Emma wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the information she had, but she knew she wasn’t going to take Henry away from a loving, capable parent. She hoped Henry didn’t want that.

“You’re here to find the missing people and break the curse. What if she had something to do with it and makes you disappear?”

Emma cocked her head and looked at him indulgently. “I’m not gonna disappear. There’s no curse.”

Henry pursed his lips. “You know the clock tower over the library?”

“Yeah.”

“That clock hasn’t moved my whole life. Time’s frozen here.”

“Hmm, frozen. You watch too many movies.” She shook her head. 

“The evil queen did it with her curse.”

Emma was tired, so she played along. “Right, frozen in time. Stuck in Storybrooke, Maine.”

Henry got up and put the book in his backpack. “I’d better get back before she notices I’m missing.”

Emma took a deep breath. “Maybe you should talk to someone about these fantasies you’ve been having. I think you’re lonely.”

He looked up at her, his hand on the doorknob. “My therapist went missing a week ago.” He gave her a sad smile and opened the door.

She sighed heavily. “I’m working on it, kid.” She felt like she was the only one who was, really, other than Jefferson.

Henry turned to her in the hallway and shrugged. “I know. I believe in you.”

She watched him walk back down the hallway, and felt the urge to walk him home. “Wait.” She grabbed her jacket and her keys. “With some crazy person out there kidnapping people and doing God-knows-what to them, I’d better drive you home.”

She’d only found out she was Henry’s mom less than ten minutes ago, and she already felt overprotective. Great, she thought. She’d opened up Pandora’s Box coming to this town. What was next – lions and tigers and bears? Yawning, she fumbled with her keys as they walked to the car. The least she could do was make sure he was safe.

After dropping Henry off at the curb and waiting until he was inside, Emma drove around for awhile, trying to let the whole thing sink in. She’d spent years trying to eke out a life after Neal, after giving her son – Henry – up. She wasn’t sure she even knew what Henry wanted from her, apart from figuring out the investigation and indulging him in his fantasy. She felt numb, and a little aggravated that her life was somewhat normal just a week ago, and here she was being chased by crazy pirate guys, waking up in jail, investigating the most bizarre case she’d ever laid eyes on, and now she was finding out that the person who gave her the information was not only her son but also apparently a bit of an outlaw.

Well, at least he came by that honestly.

There wasn’t much Emma could do about the situation she found herself in, unless she wanted to leave. She didn’t, however, and found herself driving back to the bed and breakfast. She looked up at the clock tower as she passed, reflex telling her to check the time, and noted that it was indeed stuck. The clock read 8:15.

When she got back to her room, she downed the rest of her flask of whiskey, and scrubbed the day off in the shower with the flashlight on. She’d have to let Granny know about the blown bulbs in the morning. It was probably old wiring in the large house.

She fell into bed, feeling drained and numb and raw, hoping for nothing but a dreamless, heavy sleep.

______

The ghost slipped into the room as easily as he had entered the queen’s bedroom earlier that evening. Like every other night he’d been here, he waited until past midnight to attend to her.

The moonlight was absent tonight, clouds covering the stars he’d spent many years becoming familiar with in this realm. Still, there was enough light coming into Emma’s room through the streets that he could make out the damp strands of her hair lying across the pillow, one leg thrown over the blankets, and he smiled in spite of himself.

She was beautiful, breathtaking, and he would never see her look upon him with anything other than horror. He looked over at the rings on his hand, reminders of the life he led before, and the life he would never have now. He was overwhelmed with sadness.

He picked up the storybook from its spot under her bed and leaned quietly against the nightstand. She rolled over and let out a deep sigh in her sleep.

“Ready, Swan?” he whispered, as smile glancing across his lips.

“Now, where were we?” Killian flipped through the pages until he found the one he was looking for. “Ah, yes. Princess Ingrid.”

Ever so softly, he cooed from his perch, “Princess Ingrid was the oldest daughter of Queen Sonja and King Harald of Arendelle, and she was heir to the royal throne. She enjoyed playing with her two younger sisters, Helga and Gerda…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know. Where was I? Well, I'll tell ya. I was on vacation, and it was warm and wonderful, and then I entered the last month of training for a marathon. Which, if you don't know, will suck up your life. It's crazy. Anyway, much apologies. You're all delightful for sticking with me, and I appreciate you. Many thanks to my beta, the-captains-ayebrows, for giving this the green light. <3


End file.
